SAO - The Century Voyage
by Johnny Wycliffe
Summary: Kirito is a young man who is about to receive an update to his software. Unfortunately for him, his update is flawed, and he gets a glimpse of a world he wasn't meant to see... Ours. This story chronicles his journey through Aincrad and beyond, into new worlds.
1. Chapter 1: Orange player

This is an AU where SAO is essentially the real world for its players, and they know nothing of their flesh bodies. I modified a few game rules (like the PK color and permanence of said color) to fit SAO being built as a permanent system from the ground up, but for the most part it will remain consistent with SAO.

On to the story!

* * *

I opened my eyes to find I was alone. That's not unusual

I'm Kirito. It's a combination of my given first and last names. I'm a swordsman of Aincrad.

I'm also in a lot of trouble.

"Shit! It's almost time for my update!"

I scramble to my feet and pinch my right thumb and forefinger together. A purple rectangle appears in the air, giving me a readout of several things I didn't care about just now.

"Where did I put my- ah, there it is!"

I sigh as the weight of my wooden practice sword drops on my back. Normally, unequipping it is considered bad form or suicide, depending on what level you're on, but I'm confident in my abilities.

I tap a few more buttons, over to family, and put a trace on mom. A glowing blue line appears on the map and I orient myself to head in the indicated direction.

The walk back is uneventful. Monsters haven't pushed down to this level yet, but dad says it's just a matter of time.

Mom and dad are merchants. They like to hang around town and trade for goods that are hard to find on these levels. Some of the stuff I've carried around for them was s-class quality, and only a few people could actually use them.

Our shop is located on the tenth level, only two levels from the monsters. Mom is constantly worried about it now, but dad says he's confident in the Clearers.

The Clearers are those people who put effort into driving the monsters back. At least, that's what they used to do before they started getting pushed back by hordes of nasties.

My whole life until this point, I've been training to be one of the Clearers. Most people nowadays would rather train in black-smithing, woodworking, or cooking or some other non-violent discipline. It makes for a low death toll, as well as a very vibrant city. My parents wanted me to train to be a merchant instead, but I always ended up back in the field with my training sword.

Thankfully, the creatures on level ten were all low level things not exterminated or controlled by the army. It meant that only level one or two creatures could attack me, and even a five year old could defeat one of those with their bare hands.

I enter the city and watch as the HP bar in the top corner of my screen disappears. It's not needed inside the city, seeing as the city has a magical protection from PKing.

I wander over to my parent's shop, called "The Sheep's Udder," which is completely ridiculous. Nobody even knows what a sheep is, but most suspect it's the white fluffy thing painted on the sign. Mom says grandpa named the shop before he died and gave it to her.

"I'm home!"

Mom looks up from the counter. "Hi, Kirito. How was hunting?"

I open my menu and drop all of the meat and hides onto the table.

"Hey! What have I told you about that! Just open a trade window, for god's sake." She grumps.

I shrug and head upstairs. There, I access my wardrobe and select my regular clothes. A red sweater with brown pants. Yay.

I walk downstairs and watch as one of my friend walks in.

"Hi, Lizbeth."

She smiles up at me. "Find anything interesting out in the forest?"

I roll my eyes. "It's been picked over from long before now. All I find are wild frogs."

Frogmeat is pretty good, in my opinion, but nobody else seems to like it that much. Still, something is better than nothing, even with e-class ingredients.

She makes a face. "I'm glad I don't have to eat the things."

Lizbeth is a blacksmith. She's sixteen, a year older than me, and has had her update for that year. She's also made quite the name for herself selling high quality weapons.

"You should try one, they're really pretty good." I coax. Liz was perfectly happy living inside the confines of the city, forging weapons (even if it was going out of style) and having a warm bed every night. Also, she was content to eat bread if that was all she could afford, not branching out at all.

"Yeah, not until you start paying me too. Anyway, happy update!"

"Thanks!" I give her a crooked grin.

"Any thought into what you're going to spec into?"

"I'm going sword all the way. I plan on staying with one handed swords, no branching."

She smirks. "Are you sure you don't want to spec into blacksmithing? I could use an apprentice."

"Sure! I'll be your apprentice if you agree to eat frog legs for an entire year and nothing else."

She makes a face before we both burst out laughing.

"So, one handed sword, huh. I picked up mace just in case, but I haven't used that skill in forever. Probably couldn't even activate my skills if I tried."

I shrug. "I'm not sure you can lose the skills-"

She bops my head lightly, to avoid getting a warning. "I mean muscle memory, duh."

I run my head where she hit me. "Right. Well, once I'm finally rid of this level 20 lock, I'll get stronger pretty quickly." I smirk. "I give it a month before I could beat you."

She looks about ready to (playfully) hit me again, but then Klein walks in.

Klein is a samurai. He's on the front lines along with the other Clearers usually, but since he's my friend, he came down to see me. He's about 19, and is my main inspiration to become a swordsman. Of course, samurai aren't really that powerful, focusing more on control. Klein's the leader of a guild even at his young age, and it's one of the few really successful ones.

"Hi Klein!" Lizbeth calls. "How's your Ziatchi?"

Klein grins and pulls up his menu. The curved sword drops onto the table in front of him. Lizbeth picks it up and examines it. "You haven't been keeping proper care of it! Its durability is in the red zone!"

Klein rubs the back of his head. "We got attacked last night, and I haven't had time to send you a message about it. I swear, it was green 24 hours ago!"

Lizbeth narrows her eyes in suspicion, but let's go of it. She keeps the sword though. "I'll have it back to you in two days."

Klein sighs. "Guess it can't be helped anyways. So, Kirito, you still going to be a swordsman?"

I raise my fist. "Hell yeah!"

He smirks. "Well, I've got a good position in my guild-"

"Uh-huh. I'd rather not be an item organizer."

Klein puts on a mock whine. "Aw, but I haven't had my crystals put in the right storage for months!"

Lizbeth rolls her eyes.

We continue to banter on until my menu pops open of its own accord.

"Do you want to update?"

Klein nods. "Just be warned, it's really weird when you update. I don't remember it too well, but I remember thinking that I was going to go insane."

I nod. I had been told as much by others. As I press the ok button, I look up at my friends, my last thought as they fade away is that I hope my height stat updates so I'm no longer stuck at four feet tall.

* * *

I have updated before. Everyone updates once when they are five, once when they turn fifteen, and once when they turn sixty, if you live that long. When you're five, you get knocked out first to avoid traumatizing you, so the first time anyone experiences an update is when they are fifteen. This update is the one that lifts all the parental controls, let's you carry a real weapon, and lets you choose a job.

I open my eyes to find a sea of blue. It even feels like water, but thicker. At first, I think that there's nothing else around me, but a glint of metal catches my eye. I start to swim toward it, but something suddenly tugs at my spine. I turn my head to find a myriad of tubes attached to it in a gruesome manner.

I swat at the tubes, and somewhere an alarm sounds, as if from very far away. I turn around to see blurry shapes moving around through to goop. I open my mouth to speak, but it's filled with the blue liquid. I don't seem to be drowning, though, nor did the air gauge pop up.

I decide that it was about time to open my menu. I slowly push my thumb and forefinger together and swipe downwards.

Nothing.

I do it again. Still nothing. What the hell?

The shapes through the goop start buzzing. One of them starts moving around erratically. The other two move closer and the buzzing becomes louder.

...Wait, is that speech? I could've sworn I heard something like...

What's sedation? It sounds dirty.

My vision blurs and goes black for a while. As if waking from sleep, color returns and I blink a few times as the familiar walls of my parent's shop come into focus. I barely have time to recover my bearings before Lizbeth tackles me.

"OW!"

She narrows her eyes. "What were you doing? We were all worried about you!" She's standing on her hands and knees above me, pinning me down.

"Huh?" I look at the clock in the bottom corner of my screen. "I've been gone four hours?!"

She nods. "We all got so worried when you didn't come back right away. Are you alright?"

I look down at my arm. "I can't check with you on top of me."

She blushes and stands up.

I open my menu from my position on the floor and watch as the purple box expands. "Let's see, friends list is still there, stats... stats are unassigned, for some reason. Hmm, I'll do that in a moment. Trace system is still there, map is still there. Oh, new equip options!"

I happily navigate all the new sub menus as Lizbeth pokes Klein awake and then goes to get my parents, who all quickly return.

"So many new options! Since all my skills reset, I'm going to put it all into useful stuff."

Lizbeth frowns. "They really reset? That's not normal. Show me your screen?"

I press a small button on the bottom corner and Lizbeth's eyes focus on the words as they become visible to her. "This is really weird. Good for you! Now you don't have to put points into useless things! Damn, this is a once in a lifetime event. Lucky!"

She slaps me on the back and a tiny bell sound rings as a purple warning window appears above my head.

"Oops." She smiles.

Klein pats me on the back slightly lighter, and he gets no warning. "Congratulations! Seriously though, if you need a job in a guild, just let me know. Even if we run out of openings, I can always recommend you to some other guild."

"Thanks. I'll look you up once I get some combat levels... Er, some actual combat levels, not just the ones I just assigned."

He smirks. "Jeez, so arrogant. You already wasted four hours in the ether, so you're officially four hours behind everyone else."

My eyes widen. "Oh crap! I need to get to-"

Klein laughs and taps my forehead. "Don't be in such a hurry. You don't even have a decent sword yet."

I grumble a bit, but he does have a point. Then I jerk my head upright as I realize. "I'm not going to be able to get any weapons! I put all my skills into one handed sword, so I'm useless at everything else!"

Klein laughs.

Lizbeth sighs. "Fine. I'll make you a weapon, but you're going to have to pay it off, alright?"

I turn to her. "Really?"

She nods. "I'd feel bad if you went out and died because nobody gave you a decent weapon..." She coughs. "I... May have made you a longsword already."

She opens her inventory before a black sword pops out of in air and lands on the table.

Mom mutters something about the durability of the table, but I ignore her. "Whoa! This is awesome!" I pick it up with ease.

Klein looks at the sword. "You specced strength, then. Otherwise, your hand would've lost its grip by now."

I nod. "I'll get some speed soon. After all, with a sword this good- Lizbeth! Are planning on turning me into a debt slave?" I turn to her in horror.

Her cheeks flush. "No! I wasn't going to charge you the market price, and, well, it is update day for you..."

"Oh, ok. We'll figure it out later."

I step into the center of the room to avoid smashing anything, and take two experimental swipes. Gasps are heard from the four gathered as both strikes leave blue trails.

I smile. "Practicing in the forest paid off after all, huh?" I swipe the sword back and forth in front of me once, then habitually try to slide it into my already occupied sheath. I quickly switch hands and open the weapons menu with my right, unequipping my practice sword.

The new sword slides easily into its sheath.

"So, why's it called Black Ice?" I ask of Lizbeth.

She shrugs. "I just make 'em. They get named by the system. It suits you, though."

I smile. Yes, it does. I check my clock again. "Hey, Klein. Have a backup sword?"

"Yeah. Want to go hunting to test out that new sword?"

Mom sighs. "Just be very careful."

I grin. "I'm going with a Clearer. It's not like I'm going totally unprepared either." I do sober up enough to think a bit before rushing off. "Klein, how much is a teleport crystal? I kind of want that as a safety net."

He grins. A trade window pops up in front of both of us before two teleport crystals appear in it. "I can spare a few for a friend."

"Awesome."

Lizbeth stretches and yawns. "I'm going to go now. Klein, come in Tuesday, and I'll have your weapon ready. Kirito, I want to see you as soon as you're back."

Wh- what was that wink for? Why is Klein snickering?

"Let's get down to the fifth level. We should be able to handle things down there no problem." Klein says after his little fit had ended. Don't worry, Kaguya, Sundancer. I'll bring him back in one piece."

Oh, right. Since only our chosen names (which can be customized once a month) are on display, he only knows my parents by their chosen names. Why dad chose Sundancer is anyone's guess.

I wave goodbye to them as I step out the door, and focus ahead as my blood starts to pump faster in anticipation.

Klein wastes no time in getting us down to the fifth level. He flashes his emblem at the army members standing watch, and they let us pass without any difficulty.

Oddly, floor five has some hidden nest of creatures that nobody could find. Consequently, nobody chose to live on five, but lived on six or four instead. Most people lived on one, but a significant portion had decided to move upwards.

Soon, we come to a cave. Klein stops and turns to me.

"You ready? Make sure you have your crystal in your pocket, and your sword drawn."

I nod and comply with his instructions. After all, he's the Clearer.

"Look, see over there? It's a cave spider. I know you know how to use sword skills, so I'm not going to go over that. Just relax. I'm here if you... need me..."

I flick the sword to get rid of the clinging shards of creature. "This is a nice sword! I'll have to give Lizbeth something nice in exchange."

Klein smirks again. "I'm sure you'll be able to think of something."

I ready my sword again and turn back to the tunnel. "So, what's at the end of this tunnel?"

"It's a queen spider. She's nasty, but if you can dodge her attacks, she's a pushover."

Another spider drops down from the ceiling. Before it even hits the ground, it's bisected with a one handed swing. "Geez, if they keep throwing enemies at me, I might end up leveling on my first day."

Klein shakes his head. "You're above average already. Most swordsmen don't come to this cave until they're level 6 or above. It's amazing that you've been doing this so handily."

I smile.

We continue to walk forward, and true to form, I not only level up once, but three times. I put each of those three points into speed instead of strength, because I could tell I was missing because of my strike speed. My strength was already enough to one hit everything that kept coming after us. Klein kept shaking his head. "You know, I might not accept you into our guild, since you're already way too powerful. You'll soon rival me!"

I double check for monsters, but find none. "Even so, you're definitely better suited to leading. Charisma pours out of your ears."

He scratches his head, his bandana slipping a bit. "If I was, I might have a little better luck with women, don't you think?"

I shrug. "How would I know?"

His face contorts in exasperation. "How do you not see-"

Suddenly, a low hiss vibrates through the cave.

"Well, here she is. Ready?"

I brandish my sword. "Yeah, let's get going."

We turn the corner.

"Gah! That's big!"

"And she drops a lot of col. You might be able to pay for that sword with just her." He grins. "Well, if you were soloing it. If I help, it'll be a lot less for you."

I look at my inventory. The spider queen seems to be waiting for us to do something, so it's safe for the moment.

"I could still pay for it with what I have now, since I've been effectively soloing this whole time anyways." I look at the queen spider. "So, how do we do this?"

Klein sheaths his sword. "Go for it. If you're in real trouble, use your crystal and I'll defeat it for you."

I narrow my eyes. "Yeah, right. If I need to teleport out, I'm coming right back as soon as I'm healed back up, and stealing that kill."

He grins and steps back a single step. "Good luck."

"Thanks." I lower my stance and feel my sword glowing. I yell as a charge forward, and the queen spider rears up as I approach.

Looking back on it, it was a thirty second battle. When I was actively fighting, my mind sped up so fast I was able to see just what the spider was planning on doing. A twitch of its left foreleg would signal a swipe, and it sinking backwards was preparation for a lunge. Each time it went for the lunge, it opened its head for attack, and I swiftly struck it each time the opportunity presented itself.

Soon, it bursts into streams of particles that drift to the ground, and a congratulations message appears above the corpse.

Klein claps as I sheath my sword. "Excellent. Jeez, run through here a few more times and you'll be ready to go for the front lines."

I smirk. "So, not too bad a job, huh?"

"If we had more people on the front lines like you, we would be on floor fifty already." He laughs, but stops abruptly as a chime sounds. His fingers deftly select the message.

His eyes scan it for a second or two and then he pulls out a crystal. "I need to go. Floor twelve is being attacked. Before you ask, don't follow. Teleport home right away." He grins. "It's not a major attack, but my second in command is getting worried. See ya!"

He then holds the crystal out in front of him. "Teleport, Anaheim!"

He disappears in a shower of sparkles.

I pull out a crystal as well. "Uh, teleport, Rockfort!"

My view scatters and coalesces as I appear on the pedestal back on floor ten. There, Lizbeth is waiting. "Hey, Kirito!"

"Hi, Liz. What's up?"

"How did it go? Klein wasn't showing off the whole time, was he?"

"Nah, he let me do most of the work, actually. I can see why people follow him as a leader."

Lizbeth smiles. "So, want me to fix up your sword?"

I open my inventory. "Let's see, I don't think it went down that much... Yeah, it's still at 94%" I blink. "Oh yeah, I can pay you back. I earned enough." I initiate a trade.

She quickly cancels it. "Let's do this back at my place, alright? It's getting kind of dark out."

I shrug. No reason not to, I guess.

Ever since getting a job, she has been living outside the city limits, in a mill house with a waterwheel. It's great property for a blacksmith, especially since the waterwheel can help with the work a bit.

She invites me inside and I glance at the one handed swords as I walk past. "So, you getting a lot of business?"

She shakes her head. "I've been getting lots of durability fixing requests, but new weapons aren't needed right now. The army is my main customer now." She twirls around. "So, you said you could pay me? I don't remember naming a price."

I scratch my head. "I meant I could pay the market value of the sword. According to my family's standards, I'm already rich."

"Ah, such is the life of those who try to get themselves killed or a regular basis." She says it lightly, but I can hear something behind her tone.

I open the trade window again. This time she lets me transfer the money over, as well as the sword, which she insisted on honing.

"Don't go anywhere, I'll fix this up while you watch."

She leads me back to the work area, and starts asking questions as she pulls out her gear.

"So, what level did you get to?"

"I got to level four. The queen spider gave me a whole level by itself."

"Get any good gear?"

I pick through my inventory. "Yeah, I got some greaves, a vastly inferior sword (she smiles) and a pair of boots."

For some reason, I decided to hide the last item I had gotten.

"Cool. So, no sheath or anything?"

"Huh. No, I think I'll be ordering a few more things from you before I leave again."

She smiles and lifts my sword up. "Done! Back to 100%. So... Well, that sword was supposed to be your birthday present, but since you paid for it, I'll let you have your pick of something else from my shop, OK?"

I take the sword back. "Do you have a black sheath? I think it would look good with the sword."

"Yeah, it would. Hmm..." She pulls open her inventory and flicks through a few menus. "How's this?" she says as a black leather longsword sheath appears. I carefully slide the blade of Black Ice into the sheath and it fits perfectly.

"Looks great. Thanks, for both the sword and the sheath."

She smiles. "Come back any time you need a new weapon, or need that one sharpened, OK?"

I nod. I was about to respond, but a message window pops up.

"Kirito, are you alright? We expected you back by now. Kaguya."

"Ah, mom and dad want to know if I'm alright. I need to message them back for a minute."

She nods and starts putting her gear back.

"I'm good, cleared mini-dungeon. Now at Lizbeth's, getting sword worked on."

The next message comes back with astonishing speed. "Come home now!"

I blink. "Fine, let me say goodbye to Lizbeth first, then I'll be right home."

No more messages come.

I turn to Lizbeth. "Parents want me home."

She nods, slightly dejectedly. "Yeah, figures. Come see me again tomorrow, got it?"

I grin. "Hey, maybe I don't want to need my sword sharpened again tomorrow. That would mean I've been using it too much, right?"

Something I said made her eyes cross and a blush appear on her cheeks. "Uh, r-right. So, see you when... See you."

"...Yeah. Take care."

As I leave her shop behind, I shake my head. "Girls make no sense."

It was starting to get dark, with the sun just below the edge of the disk. It would still be light on the lower most floors.

I walk along the path, drawing my sword. Not that there is a lot of monsters on this level, but... There are some rumors of some orange players recently.

Orange players are criminals. Thieves, mostly. Sometime players who roughed up other players too much, inside or outside a city's safe zone. Murderers got a red tag. Regular players are green, which is default. Orange tags eventually went away, depending on the severity of the crime, but red tags are permanent.

Soon I can hear voices. I round a corner of the path and see a girl with chestnut hair and red and white cloth armor warily looking at a group of three green-tagged men. I stop just behind the bushes and watch.

"Look, I said, I'm going home. Please get out of my way, now."

The girl has a nice, light voice, but still commanding. Suddenly, I recognize her armor as that of the Knights of the Blood Oath. The KoB are the best guild around.

That means the girl must be really powerful, to be in that guild.

I continue to sit behind my bush as the lead guy advances on her. "Don't want to."

"Yeah, I don't want to. I'd rather play with you a bit." A second guy licks his lips, which sends shudders down the girl.

She puts her hand to her hip and draws a rapier, and levels it at the guys. "I'll ask one more time-"

There is a sharp clang as the girl's sword goes flying through the air in my direction. The lead thug smirks as he withdraws his sword. "Right. Let's get her."

"Hey!" I yell.

The three men turn towards to me, still blocking the girl into the corner.

"What's you guys' deal? She's a member of the KoB!"

They laugh. "If she was, she wouldn't have lost to the likes of us, huh?" the leader sneers.

I lean down to pick up the girl's sword, intending to toss it back to her. Instead, one of the guys takes the moment to charge me.

I instantly knew what he was doing. If you have a sword in your hand, you can use sword skills. If you have two, you can't, because the skills assume you have only a single sword and blocks the movement of the other hand. There was a case where a guy cut off his own hand by attempting to duel wield. Since I picked up the girl's rapier, I suddenly lost access to my best moves, and this guy knew it.

Well, that's what should have happened. Instead, I draw back into a stance and hold both the now glowing swords in front of me. The attacker skids to a stop.

"Huh? What's-"

That's as far as he got before I lunged. My first strike disarmed the man, and the second pierced him, sending his health into the yellow. I continue running through the gap the man had left before the other two had a chance to shore it up. I stop next to the girl and hand her sword back.

"Don't lose it again." I say playfully.

Her ash white face nods.

I face the three thugs, one of which is in the process of picking up his sword.

"So, going to leave us alone? Your odds just halved."

The leader smirks. "So, you're an orange too? Why don't you join us in our little fun?"

"I'm not an orange-" I blink. "Oh, shit." My HP bar has an orange tag under the status window, which has been locked to green until today.

He smiles nastily. "So, what do you say?"

"No need to hold back then, at least short of murder." I shrug. "Thanks for pointing that out."

I brandish my sword and rush the three. The two subordinates take a step back as the leader heads in for a swing, glowing with a sword skill. I let the blow slide along the edge of the sword, sending a shower of sparks over the ground and slipped under his guard and decked him with my free hand.

Ah, maybe I should increase my unarmed?

He reels back, but I can tell it wasn't that much of a blow. His subordinates though, they look a little worried.

I ready my sword again, and wait for my sword skill to regenerate. The thug slowly climbs to his feet. "Kid, you just ended up in a world of hurt."

I smirk, and I toss the teleport crystal to the girl. "Take this back home. I'll hold them off while it takes effect."

She looks at the crystal, then back at me. "A-Alright."

I stand guard as the teleportation takes effect. I was focusing so hard that I missed where she teleported to. The thugs watch as their prey disappears.

"Aw, you ruined our fun." The leader snarls. "I'm just going to have to take all of your stuff instead."

His sword glows again, and I barely block the strike. I ram my shoulder into him, and he takes a step backwards to get his balance back. I swing my sword around and strike, watching his health bar sink deep into the red. He stumbles backwards and trips over a pebble.

Jeez, if I'm not careful, I'll end up killing them.

I look at the other two thugs, who look at each other and then run away. I look at the guy who is lying on the ground.

"I'd offer you a healing potion, but I don't have one. So, instead, I'm going to march you right to the city, and you better not try anything."

I wait for him to get to his feet before ordering him to march. He seems to have lost all his fight, and is willing heading to the city on my sword's tip.

Another message appears in the corner of my eye. Sorry mom, I'm kind of in a situation here.

Then another message. Then a third. And then a fourth. What was going on?

After five more messages come in, and five more minutes pass, I catch sight of the wall surrounding Rockfort. I march the thug right up to the gate. Two army members narrow their eyes as we approach.

"Hey! Who goes there?"

"Kirito. I found this guy accosting a woman on the path between this gate and the blacksmith's shop. I stopped-"

"He mugged me!" the man cries. "I don't know anything about any women!"

Wait, what? "Hey! I saved you! If I'd have left you in that state, you'd be dead!" I look at the guards. They both have suspicious looks on their faces.

The man gets on his knees. "Look! He's orange! I'm green! It's obvious who's lying!"

Uh-oh. The two guards level their weapons at me.

"Sir, we're going to need you to come answer some questions."


	2. Chapter 2: The Wall

"So, who is the girl?"

"Member of the KoB, long chestnut hair. Don't know her name."

"And, who were the thugs?"

I shrug. "Just people like the guy I brought in. The other two ran when I reduced the first guy's health into the red zone."

"Uh-huh." The army woman I was talking to looks back down at her notes. "You have absolutely nobody to corroborate your story, then?"

I let my shoulders slump. "No, unless you can find that girl."

The army woman bites her lip. "No such KoB member exists, I'm sorry to say. She might've been wearing the same colors, but she isn't a Clearer, if she even exists."

I let my head hit the table.

"So, that means I'm going to have to go to jail."

She nods.

"Damn."

She nods again. "So, supposing your story is accurate, how come the girl didn't come with you?"

"I gave her my teleport crystal-"

I stop once I see the look of disbelief on her face. "It's true." I mutter.

She looks down at her papers again. "So, how were you able to get to this girl when she was surrounded?"

"I... I'm about to dig myself a deeper hole. Her rapier was knocked out of her hands, so I went to toss it back to her, but one of the thugs rushed me since I had both hands full."

"And you weren't hit by him?"

"...No. I was able to knock his sword aside and slash at him, getting behind him and into the area with the girl."

She looks back at her notes. "Today is your update, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"How were you able to defeat even a single one of those men?"

I drop my head into my hands. "I'm skilled with my sword. I have all my points in fighting skills. I went through the spider caves on floor five with the Clearer Klein before-"

She lets the papers drop. "Are you trying to make your own situation worse? If you are found lying at this point, you will be subject to charges of slander, along with assault and attempted robbery. I suggest you tell only the truth."

I shrug. "I am. It's not easy to believe I guess, but if you ask Klein, Lizbeth the blacksmith, and my parents, they'll all corroborate my story."

She flips through her notes, shuffling them back into a neat pile. "This man you brought in on sword tip, have you met him before?"

"No."

Suddenly the door bursts open. There, Klein and Lizbeth stand, puffing.

"Kirito!" Lizbeth yells, and tackles me out of my chair. My cuffed hand doesn't follow, and it strains as the rest of my body is pushed out of my chair.

"Ow! Jeez, Liz, that hurt."

"Sorry. How the hell did you manage to get an orange mark on your way home from my house!" She demands.

I point a shaky finger at the army woman. "Ask her."

"He supposedly saw a group of thugs attacking a girl, gave her his only teleport crystal, and fought off all but one of the men, the last of which he brought here at swordpoint."

Liz smacks the back of my head. "Idiot."

"Hey! She looked like she needed help!"

"Yeah, but you didn't need to get an orange tag over it!"

Klein sighs. "Well, I'm just glad you didn't die." He turns to the woman. "I'm Klein, leader of the Clearing guild-"

"What, he wasn't lying about that? You took a freshly upgraded kid into the floor five rat caves?"

"No, spider caves." He looks at me. "Did you lie to her? Cause that was the stupidest-"

She raises a hand. "It was a test. He said spider caves as well. Well then."

Klein sighs. "Oh yeah, Lizbeth? I'm going to need that Ziatchi back ASAP. My backup is almost worn out."

She nods.

Klein turns to me with a mischievous grin. "So, this girl, was she hot?"

"Uh-"

"Oh come on! He was just rescuing someone! It's not because she was pretty... Right?" Lizbeth turns back to me and narrows her eyes.

"Uhm-"

"Hello?"

We all turn as a new face arrives at the door.

"Hello, sir. Just interrogating this prisoner before his... backup showed." The army woman says.

The man nods and gestures for her to leave. She salutes and steps out.

"So, I hear you rescued someone under unusual circumstances." He steeples his fingers. "Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Thinker. I'm the commander of the Army. I'm here because... Well, I received an odd message less than thirty minutes ago. The leader of the KoB, Heathcliff, said that one of his new members was attacked on floor ten, but said she was rescued by a random boy walking around. Now, I was told she said he turned orange to save her. Your story also came up since you were making such outrageous claims, and I put two and two together. Now, I've called that girl, Asuna, to come down and testify. If your stories match up, you may have a reduced sentence."

"R-Reduced? But if he's innocent-"

"He's still orange."

The room falls silent.

I break the silence. "Yeah, I guess I did almost kill the guy, even if it was an accident. That's fair."

Thinker nods. "Now, we don't normally advertise this, but instead of going to prison for an allotted amount of time, you have the option of joining the guard for the same period of time. It's the lightest punishment we offer, and it's only valid to those who turned orange under odd circumstances. I would suggest taking that route if you can."

The guard. Where you stand in front of a wall for hours on the twelfth floor and kill any monsters that approach.

He stands up. "I'm going down to meet Asuna. I'll send someone up to inform you of my decision once I've heard her out."

He lifts a hand goodbye before walking out the door.

"Well, it could be worse."

Lizbeth decks me again, this time generating a warning. "You almost killed him? What were you thinking!"

I raise my free hand in defense. "I wasn't even using a sword skill! I just wanted to cut him to get him to back off. I was already orange anyway, so I didn't think it would hurt!"

The door opens again. My parents come in with sad looks on their faces.

"Kirito!" dad's voice is sharp. "What did you do?"

I went through the whole story, excluding the twin swords part. I wanted to keep that secret, like that item-

"So, you were protecting the weak?" Dad says doubtfully.

"It does fit his personality..." Klein says.

Dad shakes his head, frustration filling his words. "Well, after the orange goes away, you can come back. Until then, we can't afford to be known to serve orange players." He looks up with tears in his eyes. "I'm so sorry."

Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. Orange players are rare, but everyone knows that doing business with one makes you a criminal as well, if not marked by the system.

I raise my free hand again. "No problem. I'm going to have to go to prison or work on the wall no matter the outcome, so it shouldn't be a problem."

He nods and looks down at his feet, clearly unhappy with this turn of events.

The silence stretches, only broken by the clinking of my cuffs as I shift around.

Suddenly, the door bangs open, startling all of us and causing four weapons to draw.

Who knew my parents actually had combat reflexes? And since when did mom use daggers?

There, the girl I had saved, Asuna, is standing. She has tears in her eyes. "Th-thank you for saving me!" She bows in a traditional way before straightening up. "Thinker told me to tell you that he believes your story, and is going to look into it further, but for now, you can head home with your family. He said to come back tomorrow for reassignment." She sniffs back some tears.

"Uh... That's great! But, I don't want to hurt my dad's business..."

Liz raises a hand. "I can take him in for tonight."

Judging by the looks from my parents, that was a no.

Klein shrugs. "I might be able to take him in for a night."

"Oh, would you?" Mom almost has sparkles in her eyes.

Klein smirks. "Sure... Hey, Asuna, was it? Did Thinker give you a key?"

She blinks, then scrambles to open her menu, eventually pulling out a silver key. She hands it to Klein, who turns and releases me from the table. I rub my wrist.

"So, what happens to my items?" I ask the room.

"Thinker said you could take back everything but your weapons." Asuna says. I smile at her, which makes her blush.

"Thanks for proving my innocence, as it is. I guess it was pretty stupid to walk up to the gate with an orange marker."

She nods. "I'm sorry I caused you all this trouble."

I shrug. "I'll live."

With that, my parents and Lizbeth leave, all three close to or in tears. Klein claps a hand on my shoulder and leads me down and out of the Army's compound before heading through Rockfort towards the central platform. Before we had even cleared a block he stopped.

"You can come out now." He calls.

Asuna steps into the light. "Um... I was-"

"You don't need to lie. I'm not his dad or even family. Just a friend."

She steps closer again. "Um, well, I was thinking..." She hesitates. "I'm a pretty good cook, so would you like to come over to my place to get something to eat?"

Klein looks down at me. I look back. "Aren't I under house arrest or something?"

He shrugs. "I heard free to go for the night. I was just the most convenient option."

I nod. "Uh, thanks, but-"

Klein suddenly gets a broad grin and shoves me down. A purple warning window appears, but I can still seem him pull out a teleport crystal (is he made of the things?) and say "Teleport, Anaheim!"

He disappears in a cloud of particles.

"Uh..." I look back at Asuna. "I guess I'm taking you up on your offer."

Only half her face smiles, as if it's painful. "Yeah. Alright." Her left eye twitches. "Is he always...?"

I nod and stand up. "He's crazy. I guess you have too to be a Clearer."

She turns and starts walking towards the central teleport pad. Before long, she strikes up a conversation.

"We haven't been properly introduced. I'm Asuna."

"Kirito."

"Do you always go around saving damsels in distress?"

"Well, I just updated today, so, I guess I can say I've saved one damsel a day for my entire career, averaged." I grin.

She smiles slightly. "Ah. I heard from Thinker that you're an abnormal guy, at least in terms of stats."

"Yeah, I've specced into swords and swords only. It came in handy, right?"

She nods a bit more enthusiastically. "Yeah. Is that where you got your dual blade skill from?"

...Ah. "So you noticed?"

"Yes! It was so amazing! I never thought anyone could do that!"

"To be honest, I just wasn't thinking. I didn't know it was going to work out that way either." I roll my shoulders. "You know, your rapier is very nice."

"Thanks!" She blushes. "It's my dad's. He gave it to me when he got a new service weapon that was more practical for his job."

I raise an eyebrow. "Is he a Clearer?"

She shakes her head. "He's on the wall."

"Huh."

We walk on in silence until we reach the teleporter pad. She grabs my hand and takes a deep breath. "Teleport, Anaheim!"

Instantly, we end up on floor twelve. Asuna lets go of my hand and points down the road. "I live down here. My father lives close by, but he's on duty until midnight."

She starts walking, and I follow a pace behind.

"I, uh, really hope I'm not intruding-"

"No! It's fine. You did save me after all..." She walks up to a door and opens it.

Inside- well, it's not luxurious, but it isn't cheap furnishings either. She turns to me.

"Anything in particular you'd like?"

"N-Not really. Anything you think will taste good."

She pauses to think, then heads for the kitchen. I look around the room again, and notice something very odd.

It looks like this house isn't used much. There's a thin layer of dust that gathers after a month of inactivity. I look back to see Asuna still cooking.

I press the button that deletes the dust and watch as everything sparkles.

"Thanks."

I turn around to see Asuna blushing. "I haven't had much time to come home for a while. If I had known-"

"Then you wouldn't have been out all alone."

She hesitates then nods. "Yeah." then she brightens. "Um, the stew's done!"

She points to a big pot in the center of the table.

It takes a while to eat. The food is so good that it's hard not to inhale it, but I carefully make sure to actually chew before swallowing so as to savor the taste.

After the plates are cleared, Asuna sits down across from me.

I cough. "I don't suppose you know where Klein lives?"

"Klein's the guy who you were going to board with?"

I nod.

"No, sorry. I mean, if you want, you can sleep here tonight."

The last five words drag into silence. "Um, I didn't catch that." I did, but-

"If you need a place, you can sleep here." She keeps her head low, but I could guess she's blushing.

"I... Thanks, but I wouldn't want to impose-"

She suddenly stands up. "You. Here." He commanding voice from before was back.

It takes me a second to recover. "Yeah, sure. Here's good."

She sits back down. "Um, so..."

"I'll sleep on your couch. It looks comfy." I say nonchalantly. "So, thanks for dinner, and a place to sleep."

She nods. "If you need anything, I'll be in my room."

She gets up and goes to the only door inside the house, opens it and closes it behind her. It clicks as the lock shuts.

"Like I'd go anywhere near a girls room without permission." I mumble, before unequipping my clothes and putting on some softer ones. It wouldn't do for her to see me in my underwear.

I set my alarm for 8:00, and close my eyes.

* * *

Asuna is an early riser. Also, she forgets things in the morning. Thus, I was woken up by a shoe hitting my forehead at around 7:27 am.

"Ahg! What was that for?"

I check above my head, but no warning appears.

"Oh, sorry! I thought... I don't know. Some people say people can get into houses uninvited, and I guess I overreacted..."

I shake my head. "Eh. No problem." I stretch. "I need to show up to prison today. Thanks for the meal, it was delicious."

She smiles, genuinely. "No problem!" She drags her foot on the ground. "If you do end up working the walls, come visit, okay?"

I hesitate. "Aren't you worried about being seen with an orange player?"

"No, I can just explain you saved me if they ask."

I shrug. "Sure then. See you around."

She returns the pleasantry and closes the door. I turn and head for the central platform, intending to head straight for the floor ten cell block.

The next few hours were hectic. Thinker gave me a position on the wall; I was outfitted with new gear, given my swords back in the same condition a left them in, and hurried back up to the twelfth level.

There, a man with the design of Aincrad on his chest greets me.

"So, you're the new prisoner? You look pretty young."

"Yeah. I updated yesterday." I say as emotionlessly as possible.

He just raises an eyebrow. "It doesn't matter. Follow me."

He takes me on a tour along a good portion of the wall, showing me where the mess hall is, along with the barracks, and finally-

"Here's your post. It's almost time for the watch to switch, so I'm putting you up immediately. If there's any trouble, just yell. People will come running"

I nod. "Thanks for the tour."

The guard below us yells something unintelligible. I peer over the edge to see a man trapped on a narrow ledge that was the post with two small pig things snapping at him. He starts scrambling up the ladder to get away from them.

"Looks like you've already got your work cut out for you, huh?" The man with the Aincrad symbol slaps me on the back.

"Yeah."

As soon as the other guard (who looks weaker than I did when I was eight) finishes climbing the ladder, I grab the top rung and swiftly descend.

My sword is drawn before I touch down and it only takes two swipes to dispatch the creatures. I look up to see the soldier that was on duty staring back down with wide eyes.

"M-make sure you stay close to the wall!" He calls in a tremulous voice.

"What? Can't hear you!" I yell as I jump off the ledge and onto the grass. He says something else, but it is lost to the wind. I draw my inferior sword that I got as a drop and wait. Something pokes its head out of a bush, and before it can squeal, it's already been reduced to prismatic shards.

The sounds of battle attract attention. Soon, I can see creatures hiding in the bushes all around me. Despite myself, I grin. "So, I can still level while serving time. Excellent."

I stab the nearest bush to hear a shattering sound and see my XP bar go up a fraction.

"Alright, who's next?" I call.

For the next eight hours (one shift) I battled my heart out. I completely wore down my dropped sword until it burst, then had to switch to my Black Ice. I gained another five levels, bringing me to level 9. The only difficulty came when it was time to switch out. Black Ice is at 38% durability, my muscles are starting to get tired, and the monsters didn't seem to be stopping. The bell rings to switch, but I'm still fighting, slowly backing up towards the wall. These things may not be all that powerful on their own, but if you drop your guard against a horde of them, your survival is far from guaranteed.

The creatures back off the closer I get to the wall, until only a few brave ones follow me, and are quickly dispatched, leaving me free to scale the wall.

As soon as I crest the edge, I collapse on the ground. I wait for the thunder of blood rushing through my skull to subside, but it quickly gets replaced by... Cheers?

I open my eyes to see a bit of a crowd gathered. In the front row are Asuna and Klein.

"Uh, hi?"

"Hi!" Asuna calls. She has a basket in her hands.

Klein has a wry smile on his face. "You're not supposed to solo floor twelve until you're actually level twelve, you know."

I shrug. "Well, I'm not going with that plan, now am I?" I sheath my sword and pat the shoulder of the man replacing me, who looks even weaker than the one before me.

He gulps before descending the ladder.

"Looks like it. How's your sword doing?"

"38%. I'm not officially allowed to leave the wall, so... Can you get this to Lizbeth?" I check my new items gotten from the corpses of my rampage. "Yeah, I have enough to last me through tomorrow."

The crowd starts to disperse, finding that I wasn't about to go charging back into the fray anytime soon.

Klein shakes his head. "Yeah, sure. I was going to head back down to her shop today anyways." He straightens up. "Once you serve your time, come find me. I seriously want you in Fuurinkazan. You might even make us surpass the leader of the KoB!" He smiles as I hand him the sword.

Heathcliff? Hell no. He's the best fighter in all of Aincrad.

"I'll think about it. Maybe I'll join the KoB just to tick you off." I grin.

He shakes his head. "See you around." He turns and walks off.

Asuna lifts the basket up. "I made lunch."

I glance at the clock. "It's 8:14 PM."

"I made it for lunch, it's not my fault you were too busy fighting." She sits down on the edge of the wall. "Come on, let's eat. The durability probably isn't too high anymore."

I nod and sit beside her. She hands me a sandwich which I quickly dig into.

"Mmmph! This ish good!"

She bites into her own sandwich. "Mmhmm."

We eat in silence, finishing the sandwiches before they shattered.

"Thanks again for the food."

"You're welcome." She hesitates. "Um, how are you so strong? You just updated, right?"

"I put all my points into one handed swords. I'm very specialized."

She nods. "That's... it must be nice to be effective."

I blink. "Aren't you in KoB? You need to be good to get into that guild!"

She hangs her head. "I'm just the daughter of the second in command. I'm trying to get skilled with a rapier, but it's slow going. It's not like I'm not trying, but it's been a whole year, and you've surpassed me in a day."

I shrug. "You need to party with somebody, and go outside the walls for an hour. I can almost guarantee that you'll be another level or two."

She nods. "I know, I'm just having trouble finding someone who wants to go with me. All of the Knights I'm familiar with are the ones who do the errands, not the fighters."

"That sucks." I look out over the now dark brush surrounding the ground on this level.

She rolls her eyes in apparent exasperation. "Could I, maybe, team up with you?" She asks with hope in her voice.

"Sure, I guess." I blink. "Wait, do you mean tomorrow, or after I get out of wall duty?"

"Tomorrow. I can bring lunch, and then we'll go out and fight." She says with so much enthusiasm I think she's about to burst.

"Lunch would be nice, but are you sure you can handle yourself out there?"

She sits up and glares at me. "I bet I could beat you in a duel!"

I raise an eyebrow. "Really? Then I don't need to help you. You can handle yourself, right?"

Her face puffs up. "Just because I actually wanted to live life a little doesn't make me inferior!"

"Who said you were inferior?"

"Your attitude! You told me you put everything into combat skills, right? So, swords, healing, and agility? Nothing else?"

I nod, my face set into a neutral expression.

"So, you can't cook, you can't sew, you can't repair your own equipment. Most people put at least 200 levels into those just for basic purposes! You are useless outside of battle."

She suddenly claps her hand over her mouth as her cheeks flush red. She sinks back down to sitting position.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get so defen-"

I hold up a hand to stop her. "It's your opinion, and it's pretty valid, I have to admit. Sure, I'll help you tomorrow. Bring gear and some healing supplies, if you can get them." My voice is rather colder than it was before. I did save her with those skills, right?

She nods. "S-so, see you tomorrow, then?"

"Yeah."

She stands up and grabs the basket. Her footsteps slowly recede into the darkness, leaving only quiet behind.

I pull out my secret item. It's the perfect time to test it.

I quickly unequip my regular, basic armor and equip my cloak. It's black, with white lines running around the edges. It's called the cloak of shadows, and the description says that it gives the wearer a large boost in stealth. Considering it is an A-class item, I'm assuming it works.

With the cloak now equipped, I pull out my latest dropped sword, which was still only half as powerful as Black Ice, and sheath it across my back. Then I leap off the wall, landing in a thick pile of brush. The guard that replaced me almost screams at the noise, but regains his composure before I felt the need to move. I slowly stand up and start walking towards away from the wall.

Time to kill some more monsters.

* * *

It was five AM before I got back. It had gone through four more swords, and my last one was almost gone. I had gone up to level 11 and found a new skill, a strike that let me spin around like a top and slice everything surrounding me. It came in useful twice so far, when I got cornered. Once I was back in my bunk, I passed out for the next six hours, waking up only an hour before I was back on duty.

Oh, right, Asuna. She was waiting by my post (how do people not working here get on top of the wall?) with her picnic basket. She starts out of her thoughts as I approach.

"Oh, Kirito! It's almost time for your watch, so here I am."

"Yeah. Here you are." I scratch the back of my head. "We'll go down to the fields as soon as the other guy comes up."

Asuna sets down the basket. "Let's eat for now."

Mmmmm. Best food ever. Of course, I also liked frog's legs, so maybe you shouldn't ask me.

Uhg. Leveling cooking skill is arduous. I had thirty levels in it before my stats reset, and that took me thirty hours of cooking. I could only guess how long Asuna had spent leveling up her cooking skill to get to this level of proficiency.

Or, I could just ask.

"So, I know it's rude to ask, but what level is your cooking skill?"

She beams. "845!"

Eight hundred and forty five hours that could have been spent training sword skills, all gone. To cooking, no less.

Well, it was a damn tasty sandwich.

"That's... great."

"I got bored when dad was out on raids, so I asked him to buy me cookware. I've been cooking food since I was five." She says proudly.

I focused on useful stuff. You know, regeneration, agility, armor, stealth...

"It shows. It's excellent food."

She smiles. We finish our meal and wait for the guy before me to climb up. I peer over the edge to find him asleep.

The clock tower bell bongs and he starts awake.

"Nothing interesting happened last night?" I call down.

His face goes red. "I wasn't sleeping!"

"Didn't say you were. Get back up here so I can start."

The man scrambles up the ladder and practically flies down the stairs into the interior of the wall.

"Where did you get that coat?" Asuna asks.

I look down at myself. I forget to change into my regular guard uniform. So much for that secret. "Dungeon."

"It's cool."

I grunt and swing myself out onto the other side of the wall, gripping the first rung of the ladder. I look at her before getting ready to descend. "It's functional. That's what matters."

Then I drop one rung down, disappearing from her sight.

She peers over the edge when I'm about halfway down, and she nervously grabs the rope ladder. Once I reach the ground, I look up to see her still clinging to the rung three steps down.

"Look, if you want to do this, you have to get down here. Otherwise, you're going to be clinging to that spot for eight hours."

She slowly reaches down with a foot and climbs down a rung.

"Okay. I'm going to go hunt monsters now. Come find me when you get down."

She panics and falls off in her hurry to get down. I catch her so she doesn't take any fall damage and set her on her feet.

"Thanks."

"I'm going to expect to be saved twice now. You know, to pay me back?"

She narrows her eyes. "I'm paying you in sandwiches."

I roll my eyes. "Get out your rapier."

She draws the weapon and faces away from the wall.

"Do you know how to activate sword skills?" I ask.

"Yes." She pulls her sword back and stabs it, a white light tracing through the air.

"Good. Let's see if we can find something to attack."

I quickly locate a small pig thing and guide her over to her.

"Now, just attack it. It's not healthy, so no matter what type of strike you do, you should finish it off."

She gulps and prepares a strike, then lunges.

The sound of glass shattering reaches my ears.

Asuna cheers as... Jeez, she leveled from that?

"What level are you, anyways?" I ask.

"Level 2!"

"...Have you not killed anything before?"

"...No?"

I resist the urge to scream. "Fine. I guess it can't be helped. Let me find something else-"

Glass shatters. I look over and see she's stabbed another pig thing. Her character dings again and she smiles. She brings up her inventory and allots the points.

"So, how about this. You continue doing that, and if you need help, shout. I'll be sitting next to the wall."

She nods eagerly.

I keep an eye on her as she quickly starts to level up. She's up to level four in two hours, which is pretty impressive. Doesn't beat my time though.

About halfway through the watch, Klein literally drops by. His shoes hit the ground hard enough to startle Asuna into letting out an adorable 'eep' noise.

Klein smirks before turning back to me. "Here's Black Ice, all shiny and new. Lizbeth almost killed me when I showed her your sword, I think she though I killed you."

I smirk. "As if."

He places a second sword in front of me. "She said you owe her 2500 col for this sword."

"I didn't order another sword."

"She made it after I told her that you almost went through an entire sword in one day. Said, 'You better live long enough to pay it back'."

"Huh." I grab the sword and tuck it away into my inventory. It looks similar, but not as ornate.

"So, what's going on?

"Asuna wants to train. I'm her to make sure she doesn't get killed."

Klein bobs his head thoughtfully. "She might need help soon."

I eye the girl who seems stronger than ever. "How do you figure?"

Just as I say that, she falls down. A wild boar is heading in her direction.

"What?" My mouth is hanging open by this point.

"Quick! Save her!" Klein yells.

I grab my sword and draw on the run. It flashes across the pig's body twice before it disappears. I look down at Asuna who is sprawled in the grass. I was expecting curled up, or eyes closed, but I got wide-eyed and smiling.

"So you WERE-"

"Get up."

She eeps again and scrambles to her feet.

"I don't care what your reason was, but pretending to fall down is tantamount to suicide. It almost WAS suicide."

She looks like she wants to argue, but closes her mouth and hangs her head. "Sorry."

"What level are you now?"

"F-Five."

"Five levels is good for only one day." I stretch. "Go ahead and take a break. I'll finish this watch."

She heads back to the wall dejectedly. I'm not sure why, since it took me a lot longer than this.

Klein frowns at me. "Don't be too hard on the girl. She just wants your attention."

I glance up at the older man. "If she had died there, it wouldn't have been my fault, but hers."

Klein opens his mouth to say something, but bites it back. "I'm going to go back to Furinkazaan's HQ now. Have fun!"

I watch him leave.

The rest of the watch goes uneventfully. Once the guard comes to relieve me, I wander out and do some more night leveling, getting to level thirteen before deciding to call it a night.

"Well, I'm officially strong enough to fight on this floor like Klein and the other Clearers." I mutter as I buy three loaves of bread and a flask of water. It's only three hours until my watch starts, and I was getting tired.

The bread disappears into my mouth quickly. The hole in my stomach fills up.

"No use sleeping now. I'll just go to my watch."

I yawn as I climb the stairs to the top of the wall. There, Asuna greets me.

"Hi! I cooked up the pig meat we got yesterday, and it tastes delicious!" She eagerly pulls out two sandwiches stuffed with meat. "Here!"

I let her deposit the sandwich in my hand. It looks pretty good. I look back at her. "So, did you sharpen your weapon, or is it going to break halfway through today's exercises?"

Her cheeks pink. She should honestly put on makeup to hide the fact the does that every five minutes.

I open my inventory and toss her the two rapiers I had found last night. "Here, use these until they break."

She stares at the swords. "Why didn't you sell these?"

"Huh?"

"You could just sell them, and you'd be able to afford better gear."

"Don't need it for now. Well, I do owe Lizbeth a lot by now, but I'll pay that back when I'm done on this wall."

She shrugs and tucks one into her inventory. "Not going to eat? Then, let's get started."

"Yeah." I climb down first and watch bemusedly as she slowly scrambles down the ladder.

Since I actually have a decent weapon on me, I go out there and fight with Asuna. It results in very little XP gained for me, and Asuna only went up to level eight, despite fighting all day.

* * *

Soon, I settle into a pattern. Fight all night, sleep for an hour or two, fight in the field with Asuna, send my swords out to be repaired, repeat.

That pattern continues until the fifteenth day of my service on the wall. I was trying to buy another health potion for my reserves, but an error popped up that I had too much stuff.

"Er, I'll be back later." I apologize to the shopkeeper, who only sells healing supplies.

He just looks stunned. "Ah never seen a guy with a full inventory before!"

I shrug and walk off. On a whim I message mom.

"Hey, mom. Can you meet me somewhere? I need to sell off a lot of stuff."

She replies back after a few minutes. "Sure, meet at twelfth gate."

I guess she's not as afraid of being seen with an orange player.

I get up and trudge to the center of the city. She teleports in as I approach and gives me a bone crushing hug.

"Hi, mom. How's business?"

"Good. Once it got around that not only did our son turn orange to save a girl, but also is making a show of fighting past the wall, people have been coming to the shop."

"Glad to help." I open a trade window. She watches as I pile in all the meat, carcasses, and random weapons and armor that I don't use into her inventory. "So, it wouldn't be a problem if I visited?"

She shakes her head. "Sundancer still thinks that it would hurt business, but I'm for it. I doubt he'd turn you away if you showed up."

I nod and finish adding the excess items.

She types in a number that, upon further inspection, was half the market value of those items.

"Mom... Are you really going to undercut me that much?"

She blinks. "Oh! Sorry, force of habit." She erases the number and puts it at 90% trade value. Better than I could get anywhere else. I click accept.

She smiles. "So, how's fighting?"

"It's fighting. I'm level 18 now, but it's slow going since there's not much that's actually difficult on this floor. At least, not near enough to the wall to matter."

"Klein says you've been training with a girl, that Asuna."

"She lives on this level. In exchange for sandwiches, I help her level. She's level 9, but since she puts points into other things, she's still not able to solo yet."

Mom shakes her head. "You know, you're on the list of top 100 players now."

I raise an eyebrow. "Wow. That's... What is everyone else doing? It took me less than three weeks to get to this point!"

Mom smiles. "It's not like everyone else is willing to risk their lives on the front line like you are."

I roll my eyes.

Suddenly her voice gets sharper. "Wait, you said Asuna lives on this floor?"

I nod.

"You better not be sleeping with her."

"Mom! I'm sleeping in the barracks. Why on earth would you think that!"

We argue for a few minutes until mom gets a message. "Oh, need to get back to the shop."

I quickly divide my money into three equal portions. "Here, one for you and one for Lizbeth. I really hope it covers what I owe her up to now." I tuck the third portion into my pouch for medical potions.

"I'll get it to her." She gives me a hug. "Don't get in any more trouble, okay?"

"Not planning on it."

She steps back onto the teleport pad and disappears. I head back to the potions shop 11000 col richer, and over 300 lbs lighter. Geez, good thing I don't actually have to carry that much around on my back.

I buy a few potions, and also a healing crystal. I'd never used one before, and never needed one, but it never hurt to be prepared.

I still had an hour to kill before I was due on the wall. I might as well head here though, nowhere else to go.

I start randomly clicking through my menu, trying to see what changes have been made. I haven't gotten a good chance to look at it yet, despite having had the update for two weeks.

"Let's see... Nothing new, nothing new... I don't know what ping is... huh?"

There's a button hidden by a scroll bar on my main menu. It reads "log out," and has no description. Pressing it only asks if I'm sure, and I'm really not sure. I don't even know what it does! I'm not a lumberjack or a woodworker, so it probably doesn't produce a log-

"Kirito!"

I look up to find Asuna with her basket.

I look at the corner of my vision. "It's only 11:30. I'm not due on the wall yet."

She bobs her head to the side in agreement. "Well, I wanted to see you."

"... About what?"

She shrugs. "No reason."

She sets the basket down on the table I'm sitting at. Okay, what's going on? I'm getting some odd readings from her body language. Not that I'm an expert.

"Maybe you could help me then? I can't figure out what this button does." I press the button that lets people look at my screen.

She steps up behind me. "What is it?"

"Log out."

"W-what?" She takes two steps back.

"Log out. I can't figure out what it does... Asuna?"

She's bright red, like, PK marker red. "W-well, I guess girls have ethics settings and guys have log out-"

"Ahg! No! Not that! It's... It's not that!" I'm not one hundred percent sure, but I think I was redder than she was at that point.

"Oh, OK." She blinks, slowly returning to her normal skin tone.

We sit in silence. I see the red return to her cheeks twice in the intermittent time.

My clock rings, signifying that it's currently 11:45 AM.

"Eh, forget it. We'll deal with it later. Ready to go level up?"

She bounces out of her seat. "Yeah!"

It wasn't until 7:30 PM, almost the end of my shift, that things turned bad.

* * *

Asuna had become a lot more graceful as she practiced, now gliding along, almost dancing between her foes. I had used a special item to summon monsters, seeing as usually we ran out once they all got wiser and decided to stay out of our way.

That bait box had a weird description. Something about how it calls risen to the map, but there was nothing among the enemies called risen. Despite the fact no one even uses them or makes them anymore, this one still was at full durability. I released it, and monsters swarmed us. I still wasn't in any danger, but Asuna went into the yellow twice.

That was before the massive, level 21 scorpion suddenly burst out of the ground. It glares at us, clicking its massive claws.

"Asuna, get away, up the wall. I'll hold it off, and you get some Clearers. I don't care how."

"But, Kirito, you can't fight that alone!"

I glance at my level. 19. "I'll be fine."

I unsheath Black Ice, newly repaired and my backup sword, which is almost dead.

"Kirito, you are not allowed to die! Got it?" She calls out nervously.

"Wasn't planning to." I slide into a stance.

I wait for the sound of her footfalls to recede. "So, giant scorpion, huh?" I smirk. "Let's dance."

I charge my swords, and the scorpion lowers its tail and rushes me, taking the glowing swords as its sign to attack. I use Black Ice to deflect its claw and stab my other sword into its face. It screeches and jerks away, taking my backup sword with it.

Okay, back to one handed.

Interestingly, it keeps scraping at the sword with its claw, driving the sword deeper, and causing more damage. Well. That's one tactic I never thought of.

I get ready into a single handed stance. The scorpion is still thrashing around, it's health bar-

Oh shit! It has two health bars! The first one is in the red, but the other is still full!

Suddenly, the scorpion calms down. I hear the faint tinkling of glass as my backup sword loses all of its durability.

"Damn it. Alright, monster. You're going to pay for breaking my sword."

As if in response, the massive tail strikes out at me. I swing my sword up and around, dodging to the side and slicing the tip off. Instead of disappearing, the stinger remains. The scorpion backs off though, and I get a chance to recover my bearings.

Its second bar is already half down? This thing is weak!

I pull back into a stance, preparing for a charge. The scorpion stops it's wailing and starts skittering sideways. I track it and release my sword skill on it before it can get out of my range. It only takes two more strikes to incapacitate and kill, sending a shower of prisms into the air.

"Heh. If all level 21's are that easy, I have a few floors I need to clear."

A player pops into my radar range, and I spin around just in time to catch a face full of Asuna. It might've been nice if there wasn't armor plating over them.

"Mmmph!"

"Ah! Sorry... I brought Clearers!"

She gets off of me and I get a good view of guild Fuurinkazan, smirking at me down to a man.

"Hey Kirito. How was your first encounter with a Death scorp?"

"Death scorp?"

"Yeah." He frowns. "You're lucky it didn't hit you with its stinger. It's got a powerful paralysis. We've only fought one once before, and we almost got wiped!"

I look at the spot that it had disappeared from. "Um."

He nods. "I'm astonished you beat it. I was prepared to find you half eaten and paralyzed, having only taken down one of its health bars."

I smirk.

Asuna coughs. "I'm glad you're alright. Looks like I won't be needing this, then." She tucks a green crystal into her inventory.

The bell rings, signaling the end of my shift. I yawn.

Klein claps a hand down on my shoulder. "So, did you get anything from it?"

I pinch my fingers together and swipe downwards. Several new items pop not my inventory.

"Let's see. Poison sack times 8, scorpion hide times 5, a sword called Stinger, and... That's it."

Klein smiles. "Too bad. If you had gotten a ring, I know a few thousand people who'd pay one hell of a lot for it."

No kidding. I imagine a ring of resurrection would come in handy. Not that I had one. *cough*

"Anyway, go get some sleep. You've earned it."

I nod. "See you around."

Asuna climbs the wall right after me, and continues to follow me until I get to the staircase leading down.

"Do you need something?" I ask as I turn around.

"No, just wanted to say goodnight."

I blink a few times. "Goodnight."

She hesitates, but nods. "Goodnight. See you tomorrow."

What a weird girl. I turn and head for my bunk.


	3. Chapter 3: Goop of the Blue Variety

MOAR WURDS! Yay! I'm pretty sure this is my most popular Fic so far, so I'm especially motivated to work on it!

I hope you enjoy!

* * *

After saying goodnight to Asuna, I descend the steps into the barracks. Still as dingy as ever. I slump into my cot and stare at the ceiling. It's kind of worn, but at least it keeps the rain off.

Not that it ever rains on this floor. It's lush and green, but all the water to sustain the plant life is underground.

"Well... I guess I should get some sleep."

Three hours later, I had memorized the cracks in the ceiling. My clock was ticking up slower than ever.

To stave off boredom, I start to flip through my menus-

Oh, that's right. I forgot to find out what log out does. At least, in here I'm not likely to get arrested for losing my pants.

I press the button, and press confirm.

The world fades away, and I slowly come to realize what happened as things drift into focus.

I was back in the blue goop.

Outside, the warning sound comes again.

I can hear the buzzing of voices again, and this time I strain to hear the words.

"... of his own accord! It's not supposed to happen!"

"Relax, it's just a bug. We'll put him back under and-"

"He's allergic! It almost killed him last time!"

Wait, I haven't been anywhere close to death! ...Maybe they aren't talking about me?

"Then what are we going to do?"

Silence.

"Let's just let him sit in there for a while. As long as he doesn't mess around with his life support again, we can patch his client and let him back into the simulation."

They lost me at life support.

I try to open my menu again, but it still doesn't want to open. The men have stopped talking, so I let my mind wander.

Huh, several other things are missing aside from my menu. No health bar, no XP bar, no markers, no clock... Nothing that's not physical. Nothing magical.

Not having a health bar is seriously starting to freak me out.

What if I'm dead? That would suck. I promised Asuna... Um, why am I thinking about her? Anyway, being dead would suck.

"Aaahhhughughuh." Oops. Forgot about the goop.

A shape appears, casting a shadow on the haze of blue.

"I don't know if you can hear me, but we're working to send you back. I don't know what happened to eject you, but it's gonna be fixed. Don't mess around with your life support, OK?"

"Glah"

The shadow starts. "Oh, uh, good. No movement."

I return to my thoughts, a lot more bored than when I entered this hell. Nothing special, just random, bored out of your mind thoughts. Seriously. I couldn't even compare weapon stats, since my menu seems to be malfunctioning,

It feels like an eternity before my vision goes blank and I open my eyes to the cracked ceiling of the wall barracks.

I look around. Nobody else is in the room, and it doesn't look like I've been gone more than a few hours.

"What the hell? Was that a dream?"

I check my menu. Yeah, there's still a log out command. This time though, it's got a red circle next to it.

In the upper corner of my vision, a purple icon starts flashing. It looks an awful lot like a message icon, but doesn't have the sound attached to it.

I open it without getting up. A wall of text opens up, and I unconsciously start to read it out loud.

"Admin: Sorry for any inconvenience in your adventures. We are working to resolve your issue as fast as possible.

"Cardinal 2.0 is not supposed to allow logging out as a design feature. While the mechanic is still enabled for admins, players shouldn't be able to do so.

"Please refrain from accessing this option while we work on removing it."

A little below that extremely formal and confusing message, a second message is displayed.

"If you log out again, we might be forced to lock you out of your avatar for a while, and you can spend lots of time in a tub full of gel."

It is signed "Kayaba Akihiko."

Someone who uses their given name to send messages? That's...

That's a pretty good way to stay anonymous, actually. I wouldn't know who this guy is, even if I passed him on the street. It could even be someone I know, like Klein.

OK, maybe not Klein. But still!

I yawn and get out of bed. My clock reads three AM. Not a lot of people are awake at this time.

I walk up the stairs to the wall and sit with my legs dangling off the side. It's nice not to have someone's eyes on you all the time, just for moments like this.

"Heh. It's almost like I'm back on the tenth floor." I flop backwards and stare up at the roof of floor 12, which is the floor of level 13. It used to be inhabited, but the monsters drove everyone out... Three years ago? It might be four now. The official abandonment order was issued some time before my twelfth birthday...

From below me, the guard yells.

"Ah! H-Help!"

I peek over the edge to see-

Holy shit! Two of those death scorpions!

I leap off the wall ignoring the twenty foot drop, opening my menu midair and drawing both Black Ice and the sword I got from the last Death Scorp, Stinger. Stinger looks almost like it's made of wood, tapering off into a point. It takes me a second to recognize it as a withered version of the poison sack from the scorpion.

A window opens up on my left. Blah blah blah paralysis blah-

Paralysis? I got a sword that causes paralysis?

Awesome!

All of this occurred in the three seconds I was in the air. I close the side menu and focus on the two enemies below me. I point both swords downwards and rear them back, both glowing with a blue light as I activate a sword skill.

The two blades go straight through the scorpion, and an unearthly screech comes out of the creature.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see the late shift guy cowering on his little ledge, his pathetic excuse for a sword held in front of him.

The scorpion I have landed on has its first health bar retreat to zero and it's second to halfway down towards zero. The real good part though is that a small zigzag appears on the health bar. That means that it's paralyzed.

I yank my swords out of the twitching creature and leap off of its back. It remains where it is, twitching and hissing. Its tail still moves though, so I take the time to swing my swords through it, lopping the large appendage off as I scream by towards the other scorpion.

The night guardsman, to his credit, has made contact with his sword. However, the scorpion's armor is thick enough and its level high enough that he was doing exactly nothing to it. I'm just glad negative damage doesn't heal.

I'm pretty fast, probably one of the fastest people out there because of my power leveling. I'm still not fast enough, though.

The tail stabs downwards and gets the guard through the chest. He is slowly raised into the air, impaled on the end of the stinger. His health immediately drops into the red and he drops his sword.

These scorpions, their tails are their strong points. Cut them off, and their difficulty drops significantly. I make a small adjustment to my aim and swing at the tail with my sword skill. The first blade, Black Ice, makes contact and slices a large gouge in the appendage. The second strike, much to my horror, never comes. The sword Stinger breaks into a million shards as it comes into contact with the armor on the tail. The shattering sound is quickly accompanied by the sound of me tumbling through the low brush. The sudden lack of resistance had thrown off my balance.

By the time I got to my feet again, the scorpion was turning around to face my position, the guard still impaled on the end of the stinger. His health bar is almost completely empty, and I notice that he has a paralyzed symbol on the bar.

"Damn scorpion. I'm not going to let you kill him!" I pull another blade out of my inventory as fast as I can. Huh. Another sting.

"One shot, then." I sink back into my charge stance, and both of my swords glow blue.

With a feral yell, I charge the creature.

It attempts to grab me with its claws, but I duck under the massive chitin arms and stab both swords straight up through its stomach. It gives off a pitiful wail as it collapses into a shower of sparkling pieces.

The guard collapses on the ground and I rush over to him, already pulling out a healing crystal. His health is... I can see a tiny little dot in the corner, and that's it. I jam the crystal against his chest and watch as the bar fills up well into the green zone.

I huff out a sigh of relief.

The guard is still paralyzed, but he'll live.

"Aauuuuuuhgghhh!"

My ribs make a snapping sound as a powerful chitin claw closes around my torso. I turn my head around to see the first scorpion with just a little health left, leaking blue liquid. I'm not sure if scorpions feel emotion, but this one is angry. Paralyze doesn't last long against them, I'll give them that.

It's claw clamps tighter and my health starts to drain. My battle healing isn't keeping up with the sheer pressure of the edges of the claw.

The guard's eyes widen, but he isn't able to move. I can see his hand twitching as he struggles to do something.

I reach into my pouch, which was thankfully just below the claw. I draw a green crystal from it and toss it to the guard on the ground.

The pressure on my chest- it might cut me in half before it drains my health!

The guard struggles to his feet as the effects of the crystal reverse the poison.

My health bar slips below half, putting my in the yellow zone.

I look back at the guard. "Please... Help..."

The guard turns and scales the ladder up the wall in record time.

My world flips upside down. He... Abandoned me to die. After I saved him.

The claw increases its pressure again, and I can feel the serrated edges through my light armor. I slash Black Ice at the limb connecting the claw to the body, but I can't get a good angle on it from my position. My health shrinks down even lower. Even with all of my might, the claw won't budge.

I look back up at the ceiling of this floor. There's supposed to be a hundred floors. I wanted to explore new places, see the rest of this world.

Instead, I was dying to a stupid bug on floor twelve, seeing no farther than the average person.

My health slips down into the red, signifying that only ten percent of my health is left. The strength leaves my arms and the claws sink even deeper into my flesh. My vision starts to blur out and sounds become distant.

"Uhg, I didn't think... I didn't think I would die so easily..." I watch with a weird detachment as my health bar drops closer and closer to empty.

Wait, I have a ring... I pinch my fingers together and swipe downwards, opening the menu. I press the items button... Where is it, where is it...

I press the equip button right as my health hits the end of the bar.

My world fades out-

"Warhgh!"

I'm... Back in the blue goop! What the hell!

Outside, there's more activity. "Geez, back already?" one voice says.

"Yeah, this time it's a resurrection ring. Idiot got himself killed."

"How?"

"He fought two freaking death scorps at once, at level 19."

"What? That's suicide!"

"Thus, the need for the regeneration ring. He did kill one of them and almost killed the other. There was another player in the area, but he ran off."

"Jeez, that's harsh."

"No kidding. Alright, let's hit the dive button. It's been ten seconds by now."

The world slowly shifts away from blue and back to the pitch black of night. I watch as my health fills back up to around 25% full. I remain completely still as a check to see what's going on.

From above me, there is a hiss. A drop of something blue hits my face.

I'm under the scorpion, aren't I?

I clutch Black Ice and slowly point it towards the creature's stomach. No sudden movements. Thrust.

The wail as the creature dies is quickly replaced by shattering. The shards slowly float down and pop when the hit my body. I lay there, suddenly unable to move. My health bar is still above the red, and there is no paralysis marker... I'm just that tired. The little triangles are kinda pretty though.

Shouts, lots of them, faintly reach my ears. As far as I can tell, they're still pretty far away.

Well, I survived. Kind of. I open my menu and look at Black Ice. Its durability is down to about 13%. The second stinger, after only two strikes, is down to only 4%. Weak-ass weapon.

I didn't get another resurrection ring either. The drop rate was something like 1 in 100,000, so I wasn't really expecting one.

I take a deep breath and sit up. The world swims around for a second before my eyes refocus enough to try standing up.

Once the world is steady enough that I can orient myself towards the wall, I pack all but a weak sword into my inventory and start trudging the hundred or so yards back to the wall. In my exhausted state, it felt more like a mile.

It was only once I got to the foot of the wall I realized that I wasn't going to be able to climb the rope. I lean against the wall and slide down it, landing in a sitting position next to the rope.

The yelling was getting both louder and less distinct. It sounds like someone is speaking through the blue goop, but it's not the same voices... I think.

My eyes drift shut and the noises gradually fade into nothing.

* * *

I was surprised to open my eyes. I have no recollection of getting up from that side of the wall, and it was supposed to be at least another ten minutes before the next watch was supposed to show-

Actually, according to my clock, the 4 AM to noon shift has already been going on for six hours. Huh. Really passed out then.

I don't move but scan the room with my eyes. It looks very nice, like what the Clearers could afford. Intricate wood-laying, carvings, and even a fireplace. Opulent, that's the word.

I turn my head to the left. There's a few pictures, but I can't see them very well.

Hmm. Need to improve my night sight skill. Recognizing details in the dark could be very import-

The light comes on with a small chime.

I almost jump out of my skin and scramble to draw my sword, but it's not there. I vaguely recall tucking it away so it wouldn't deteriorate further, but didn't I draw a lamer sword as a temporary solution?

A person walks up to me. "Kirito? Are you awake?"

"Yeah." I look at the person, but for some reason, I can't see their face. "Where am I?"

"You're at my house."

Real helpful. "Mmm. Where's my sword?"

"Lizbeth has it, she's repairing it." The person pauses. "She was furious at you for using it so much." I get the impression the person smiles, but I can't... see... a mouth... "I'm just glad you were there to save Ghengis."

"Who's Ghengis?"

"The guard that has the watch after yours. You saved his life."

Oh, right. That coward.

"Mmm." I attempt to sit up, but my ab muscles don't seem to want to respond. "So... What happened after I passed out?"

"I don't know what happened right after you passed out, but we found you when the guard changed. I'm told that Ghengis found a fellow guard that was better equipped and came back for you."

"That's great."

I lapse into silence. Well, if I could figure out who this is, I might understand a bit more. I make a significant effort to focus on the person's face, but I can't make out any details. Their face might as well have been a blank slate. I look to the side. The dresser is a nice dresser, one with fine inlays... I look back at my host. Why can't I focus on them? I can see the tiny details in the pictures now that the lights are on?

"Can you help me sit up?" I ask.

The person nods and pulls me upright. I watch their face as they lean down and pull me upright.

They notice my staring. "Um, is there something on my face?"

More like the exact opposite. As far as I can tell, this person has a completely white face, not features at all.

If that's not disturbing, I don't know what is.

"No, not that. Sorry."

I struggle to swing my legs to the side. It's an effort, but once I untangle myself from the covers, I manage to stand up without further assistance.

The person watches me move around- or, I assume they do. Their face remains pointed in my direction, in any case. The body type is completely ambiguous, with only a standard set of light armor as clothes.

Huh, maybe this is the Kayaba guy who sent me that message. It makes a weird sort of sense.

"I need to get going." I announce. "Thanks for taking care of me, but I need to go cancel an appointment."

The person tilts their head to the side. "Really? I didn't know that you had today off."

Uh... What?

"Yeah, sure. Oh, do I owe you anything?"

They shake their head. "Are you sure you're alright? You're acting kind of-"

"I'm fine." I say. "Anyway, thanks for helping me." I walk to the front door and pull it open. I take three steps outside and find myself in a nightmare.

It being ten in the morning, people had already started to do business. That was expected. What wasn't...

Why does everyone have blank faces and light armor? Everyone looks exactly the same!

The blank behind me grabs my shoulder and turns me slightly. "Are you alright?"

"Y-Yeah. Fine." Gotta calm down. Let's see, I need to tell Asuna that I'm not going to be able to make it to the wall, along with my superior. Mom and dad need to know, and... Hmm, Klein? No, he doesn't need to know. I'll tell him next time I see him. Wait, they'll be able to see, or worse have become these faceless-

I navigate to the friend menus and select Asuna. A marker pops up to indicate he position-

Which is right behind me. I turn around and still only see a blank. "Asuna?"

"Yes?"

Oh, shit.

"I think I have a major problem."

* * *

It takes another three hours before I can gather my parents, Lizbeth, and Klein to Asuna's house. Of course, it could also just be impostors, seeing as they all look exactly the freaking same!

I look between the blanks, and look for differences. I can see that one of them keeps twiddling with his sword, and I guess that would be Klein. I focus on the next one over and find them fiddling with four swords.

...Maybe that one is Klein? No, probably Lizbeth.

"So, Kirito, what's going on?" Someone in the opposite corner asks. I focus on the speaker. They continue. "I was told this was urgent?"

"Yeah. I... There's something wrong with me. Everybody looks weird."

Face turn to each other and back to me. "Um, is that it?"

"Well, I can't tell any of you apart. Everyone looks exactly the same and blank."

Silence. I look from one face to another. They also look around at each other.

One in the middle points to themself. "So, who am I?"

"Uh..." I point to the two on the end that I'd previously identified. "I think those two are Klein and Lizbeth, judging by the swords. Lizbeth is the one juggling four of the swords." I point to the two in the middle. "I think you two are my parents, since you two are very close to each other." I point to the last one in the line. "Which leaves this person to be Asuna."

"Right... You know, that didn't prove anything to us, right? Since your guesses were all accurate?"

Oh. Duh. "Well, I still don't know which of my parents is which."

Those two look at each other. I'm really starting to miss facial expressions.

"So, when you woke up, you didn't know it was me?" Asuna says.

"I still don't know that it's you. You all could be impostors and I wouldn't know until you said the wrong thing." I frown. "Well, my tracker says that you all are who you say you are, so I'm going to trust you for now."

Klein's head moves slightly. I get the distinct impression he's grinning. "So, I could order one of my guys to come and pretend to be your boss, and since you can't tell the difference, you'd have to obey?"

"Eh..."

"No."

I turn my head to see which of them had spoken. They all have the same voice, which is really annoying as well.

It seems to be Asuna, who continues. "I'll follow him and tell him who everyone is, so he doesn't get in trouble."

Klein says "Even to the bathroom?" and everyone falls silent. I look from blank face to blank face attempting to discern whether he was joking or not, but... You get the picture, I'm sure.

"Ok, so, I need to figure out how to fix my sight. Until then, the less people I have to see, the better. Any suggestions?"

Everyone starts talking at once. Five sets of the same voice fill the room, and I immediately lose track of each line of thought.

"Okay! Nevermind that. We'll blame it on the Death scorps' poison and move on."

The voices quiet down. I watch as everyone settles down into (hopefully) the same positions.

"How about this, I'll go back to the shop, and stay in the back until the problem is fixed?"

One of my parents shakes their head. "You're still orange."

I look at my indicator, and sure enough, still a mix of red and yellow.

Lizbeth (I think) speaks. "He could come with me, I've got plenty of space."

"He could, but then your shop would be suspected of supplying orange players."

"He could stay here." Asuna injects. "He's already here, and once he gets his sight back, he can go right back to the wall."

"It's not like I'm blind, I just can't see you guys' faces." I grumble. "and you all look the same too."

One of my parents gets up. "Well, try to figure it out soon. I don't want you calling me mom all the time."

...I'm going to assume that's dad.

"Better than calling you Klein, right?" I smirk.

"Hey!"

Soon, the most awkward goodbyes of my life are over (I wasn't willing to hug Klein, but I usually hug my parents goodbye. It took me a bit to sort them out. I did hug Lizbeth though) and I'm left alone with Asuna. A quick location tag confirms it as well.

"So, you really can't tell who I am?"

"Not without a location tag or you telling me, no."

She turns to face me and makes a "mehhhhh" sound.

I continue to look blankly at her. Hey, at least my blank looks still have features! "I'm going to assume you made a face at me and ignore that."

Her face turns away and she mumbles something.

We throw around potential solutions and try a few of them, but to no avail. Darkness descends before we come up with a solution. We use the same sleeping arrangements as before, with me lounging on her couch.

Thankfully, I don't get woken by blunt trauma this time.

* * *

The next morning, Asuna makes breakfast. It's delicious, but I couldn't enjoy her face while I ate-

What the-?

I'm going to fire my brain unless it fixes itself right now!

I suddenly get an idea. I look through my messages and find the special one from Kabaya and press respond.

"Dear Kayaba. I would like to inform you that I'm currently unable to see anyone's face. From your message, you seem to know a lot about magic and other weird stuff, so I thought I'd ask you about it."

I send the message off.

Asuna's head tilts. "Who did you just message?"

I shrug. "Just some guy who sent me a weird message when-" Oh, maybe I shouldn't tell her about that.

"When what?"

"When I... Tried the log out button?" Wait, did I just tell her? What the hell, brain!

"You tried it? What happened?"

"I ended up in the same place as I did when I updated."

She covers her mouth area with her hands. "You got trapped in the blue goop?"

I blink. "Yeah. It's weird. There's definitely people there too. One of them was talking to me. They throw around weird words a lot though-"

A chime announces that a message had just come through. I abort my conversation and open the message.

"Really? I guess this might be our fault. I guess you're going to have to log out again. Give me three minutes to get some people ready to put you back in immediately and then log out.

"Geez, you're a pain in the ass.

"Kayaba Akihiko"

I blink. "He says to log out again in three minutes."

"So, you need to go back to the blue goop?"

I shrug. "Seems like it."

"I wonder if it has magical powers. It seems like visiting there fixes things."

I think back to the conversations I overheard. "No, I think the people there think we are nuisances. They seemed pretty irritated when I used the log out button before."

"Oh. Maybe those are angels?"

I hope not. I look at my clock in the corner on my eye. "Three minutes is up. See you in a bit."

I navigate the menus and press the indicated button. A now familiar sensation as my vision blurs and turns blue, but this time I immediately reverse and wake up to see Asuna looking at me with fear in her eyes.

"Good, it really was you."

Her face softens. "You can see me again?"

"Yup."

She sighs. "Good. I'll message your parents."

I get up as a chime sounds for another message.

"Never contact me again. I'm a busy guy. By rights, we should never have talked, but since you managed to get a bugged client, I've had to intervene twice. Now stop doing stupid things.

"Oh yeah, I also cleared your orange status. It'll keep you off the front lines, so less work for me. Now leave me alone."

This one is unsigned, but I'm pretty sure it's the same guy. Asuna raises an eyebrow at my expression. Ah, it's nice to read expressions.

"What happened to your cursor? It's green!"

I shrug. "I guess I'll message Lizbeth." I pull open another window and select her name.

"Lizbeth, got my sight back. Long story. Coming to pick up swords. See you soon."

I sign it and send it. "Asuna, I'm going to Lizbeth's to get my sword back. If the commander comes by, tell him that I don't have any weapons and went to purchase new ones."

She pouts, her lips sticking out.

I check my inventory. "I guess I need to visit mom and dad to drop off some of my loot. I'm going to need it to pay off Lizbeth."

Asuna puts a hand in her hip and leans to the side. "How much does she charge you for repairs?"

I shrug. "I just gave her a lump sum to cover the ten or so times that I sent those swords in. I'm not even sure it was enough." I wince. "Maybe she'll give me a discount."

Asuna rolls her eyes. "I'm sure she will. Anyway, see you tomorrow?"

I nod. "Probably."

We shake hands and I leave the nice house behind and walk through the city towards the portal. Funny how little attention the same face attracts when the marker is green instead of orange.

The journey back is uneventful. It's a nice change of pace to not have people pointing and edging away from me. I walk into my parents shop without even a single person pointing me out.

"Hey, mom! How's business?"

She starts and turns around. "Kirito! What are you doing here? I thought..." Her eyes flick up to my health bar. "You're back to green!"

"Yeah. I need to trade some things so I can pay off Lizbeth."

Mom narrows her eyes. "How much do you owe her?"

I shrug. "How much did she say repairs were?"

"She didn't. I just handed her the bag of money you gave me."

"Ahg. Ok, I need at least a tenth of that, so..."

Mom is an expert haggler, but I was raised by her. It takes us a good half an hour to make the trade, mostly because we couldn't agree on a price for one pound of scorpion meat.

"I can't believe she thought it wasn't worth anything! I had to kill some really hard things to get it. It's rare!" I grumble to nobody as I walk down the street. It shouldn't matter that it's c-quality!"

Lizbeth's shop is surrounded by hilly terrain, and seeing it in the day, I can pick out where Asuna was ambushed and even see where the best ambush spots would be. This road is kind of set up for thieves, to be honest. Lots of hiding spots, corners, and... What is that?

I lean over to pick up a needle. Tapping it brings up a menu.

"Throwing needle, poisoned." I look over its stats. It could be useful in a pinch, but without the poison on it, it won't do much at all.

I glance around, but I don't see anyone around who could be attempting to spring a trap on me.

"OK, on to Lizbeth's."

It only takes a few more minutes to arrive at Lizbeth's shop. I open the door and some bells sound. "Hey, Lizbeth! What's goingGAH"

My breath leaves my body as one of the fiercest tackles I've ever faced slams into me. The world spins as we tumble backwards, and I count five dizzy rotations before I end up on my back staring up at Lizbeth. "Hi."

From her position on top of me, she responds. "Hi! I didn't know you'd be back so soon."

I continue to stare up at her. "Uh, get off of me, please?"

She blushes. "Right. Sorry, sorry." She pulls herself to her feet.

"So," I cough and get to my feet. "I came to get my swords and pay of my debt."

Her eyebrow quirks. "What debt?"

"I've been sending in my weapons for regular maintenance. Isn't that expensive?"

She shake her head. "No additional materials are involved unless it's really damaged, so most of the time it's just paying for my time." She turns and winks at me. "I still normally charge customers full price either way. Easy way to turn a few col."

I roll my eyes. "Right. So, did I overpay you, then?"

She hesitates. "...Yeah. By about a hundred times."

My jaw almost hits the floor. "What?"

"Since you so generously provided me with the funds to buy better equipment, I was able to make this beauty!" She proudly holds up a clear blade with a black handle. "It's the best sword I've ever made. It's powerful, and has a concealment bonus when drawn!"

My mouth starts to water. "Please tell me you're planning to sell that."

"Of course not!"

My stomach sinks. "Oh. Well, in that case-"

"I'm just going to give it to you, dummy!" She smacks me in the back of my head. Huh, no warning. I must be a lot higher level than her. I didn't really feel it that much, either...

"Really? I could still pay you for your efforts-"

"Nope. Just come back when you need your sword sharpened."

I blink. That sounded... Double entendre-ish. "Sure." I look down at the bag of money in my inventory. "Could I, I don't know, buy more swords like this one? I seem to be going through them like crazy."

She nods and ducks under the divider between the front and back of the shop. I pull out my bag of money and place it in the trade menu.

Lizbeth walks out a few seconds later with a bundle of swords in her arms.

"Okay, so here's Black Ice, like brand new. These three are generic swords like your backup I made you. This one has a spot for an elemental stone, if you happen to find one, and this one-" She hefts a buster sword up to the counter, causing something to go crunch. "Is something I'm not going to be able to sell to anyone without a strength of at least ten times what you can get at level five." She sighs. "Kirito, I'm hitting a dead end."

I look up from the menus detailing the specs of each sword with a question splashed across my face.

She nods. "You're a swordsman, so you understand the importance of leveling. Well, for a smith, unless you go out there and fight, you eventually reach a point where you can't improve your skills. This is true of all trades, but I'm at my limit. That sword-" she points the clear bladed sword in my hands "is the limit to my skill unless I start leveling."

I go back to measuring out funds. 1000 col for the elemental sword, 750 for the three backup swords, 2500 for the buster sword... Which I wouldn't even be able to use effectively...

"Alright, I'm buying all of these." I place the bag of coins on the counter.

She looks vaguely surprised for a second before unlocking the items from her inventory so I can take them. I put all but Black Ice into my inventory. I'll look at their names later.

"Kirito?" Lizbeth shuffles her feet. "Can I ask you something?"

"Uh... You just did."

She rolls her eyes and huffs. "I mean... Can I go with you to the wall? I can probably get some levels on me, and then I can make even better weapons!" She gets an excited glint in her eyes.

"Actually, I don't think that's a good idea. Recently, some pretty difficult monsters have shown up. I wouldn't want to put you in too much danger-"

She frowns. "But, I can't keep up with you if I don't level up! I mean, even now, I don't know what level you are, but I bet it's at least into the teens!"

I smirk. "With those two Death Scorps, I got to level 20."

He eyes widen. "Level 20? But... then you shouldn't have any trouble protecting me at all!" Her cheeks puff out into a pout.

That's not the point. "Fine, I'll take you, but I refuse to take responsibility for your death."

She nods. "Got it. See you tomorrow then?"

I smile. "Yeah. My shift starts at noon, on the southeast wall."

She nods again. "Got it! And Kirito?"

"Hmm?"

She plants a kiss on my cheek. "Try not to get killed before then."

I freeze up and barely react as she retreats behind the door of her shop.

What the crap was that about?


	4. Chapter 4: Laughing Coffin

Supposedly, the wall only kept me out of trouble until my icon changed back to green. Since I missed my last day, today's going to be a makeup day. I guess I'm happy that I don't have to be on the wall for eight hours a day after today... But I did get all the way to level 20 out there. So, my first day both free and updated was spent wandering on the eighth floor. It's a nice forested area, with plenty of places to relax and get away from other people.

I was thinking about my options. Being a strong player, I know I really should either join the Army or the Clearers, but I keep going around in circles as to which to sign up with. Both are mutually exclusive too, which doesn't make the decision process easier. And then, if I join Clearers, who I should join. Sure, Klein offered, but Furinkazaan wasn't exactly on the front lines much anymore.

I'm currently inside of a cathedral, one that was rarely used. No one is sure why these buildings were built, since nobody ever uses them except when there's too many refugees from a floor that just got captured. So, I figured I was going to be safe in here. I snuck past the guard with my fancy new weapon that gives me a huge boost to concealment (called Thief, appropriately enough) and climbed up into the bell tower to look around as I gathered my thoughts. I was there for a while, until it was almost time for me to go back to the wall. Oh, and give Lizbeth a chance to fight.

That was when the Army barged in.

At least, that's what I thought they were at first. The Army issues out the same type of armor to every member, so when you see a group with that armor on, you immediately assume that they're part of the Army.

It wasn't until the first one pulled off their helmet that I recognized something was wrong. The army is pretty much all we have for law enforcement on all levels. They're the ones who were in charge of enforcing my sentence after all. So, that means there is absolutely no way that a red player would be allowed into their ranks, let alone...

Are all of these people red? Only two of the twelve have helmets on, and every single one of the others is red.

I figure staying hidden is the best option.

"What a haul!" Says the first guy to take off his helmet, a guy in his late forties with bright red hair to match his marker. He pulls out a bag of stuff and sets it on the table in front of him.

A female on his right agrees. "I can't believe he called himself a Clearer! What a joke!"

A few other laugh. The red haired guy opens the sack and pours out their spoils.

"Ooh! Look at this!" The female says. She holds up a crown-like object. "It's got a large bonus to perception!"

One of the larger guys, black with a bald head, who has a heavy looking axe strapped to his back smirks. "Right. Too bad for him he wasn't wearing it."

The girl puts on the crown and looks around. "Doesn't seem to work too well. Is it broken?"

"It's not going to have any effects in the day, or in such tight quarters." the red haired man says. "Well, maybe if there is anyone invisible, but yeah, not likely."

I slowly pull Thief closer to my body, as if that would make me less invisible.

Once I'm sure that it is currently giving me a boost to my already decent hiding skills, I resume listening to the PKers downstairs.

"...who is our next target?" The woman asks, hands clasped together in childish glee.

"There's this blacksmith on floor ten. She lives in an isolated area, and reports are she's recently come by a windfall of money. She's purchased a lot of high priced smithing tools."

"That sounds like a haul and a half!" One of the two helmeted guys shouts, his tone leaving no doubt he found the whole situation enjoyable.

"Yeah. Unfortunately, she has this friend who is getting very strong. We need to make sure he's out of the way, and it won't be easy. Guy's on the top of the leader-boards."

The bald man shrugs. "So was this guy." He gestures to the loot.

"Uh huh. Still, we need to be careful. This guy almost took out Driver."

The girl snorts. "What kind of name is Driver anyway?"

One of the guys with a helmet on growls. "It's an old term."

She rolls her eyes.

On the table, the pile of loot is being distributed into twelve portions. To my eyes, two people are definitely getting to best of everyone else since they kept opting for the not so shiny objects. You know, the ones that actually increase your stats, combat ability, that sort of thing, and not just the item with the highest col value.

"So, this guy. Is he like, red or something? I mean, most people would rather die than be branded a killer." A blond teenager plays with his share of the loot distractedly as he speaks.

"No, he's just a regular swordsman. My informant said he has a strong protective streak though."

The woman waves her hand dismissively. "Whatever. We can handle anything anyone sends after us."

Driver snorts, his mask muffling the noise somewhat. The woman whirls on him, but is stopped by a blade at her throat. The red haired man holds the hilt, and is giving her a warning look.

She huffs and backs off, and the red haired man turns back to the table. "It's almost noon. As soon as night falls, we're gonna hit this place."

The bald man leans against the wall. "Who's the owner? I used to know a lot of smiths."

"No problem there, buddy. She just started around a year ago, so you wouldn't know her."

The blond teenager opens an eye from his sleeping position. "Is she cute?"

Chuckles come from the surrounding PKers.

"What? I haven't had a date in, like, a month!" He complains.

"Search for her with your menu then. Her player code is-"

Huh? ...Oh crap. Player codes can't be overheard in any manner, so it gets magically censored whenever someone says it out loud.

The blond types something into his menu-

Why is Lizbeth... Their target is Lizbeth! I need to warn her!

Wait, that makes me the guy they need to get rid of!

* * *

You would think that I'd immediately rush out and warn her, but... Well, as soon as they got over looking at her picture for a minute, they drew watches and started guarding entrances. That is why I'm still stuck in a bell tower three hours later, panicking internally so as not to alert them of my presence. Oh, and I'm sure I'm going to be in deep shit now that I missed another day on the wall.

I had already tried my warp crystal, but it had decided not to work. This place must be in an anti-crystal zone. Which is always convenient. Who decided a cathedral needed to be an anti-crystal zone in the first place? It doesn't make sense!

Worse, these guys are definitely professionals, with one or two exceptions. In the past three hours, I saw them pull out a map, organize a decent perimeter, and generally act like... Well, parts of the Army. If they didn't have red icons, this could pass as a unit passing through.

Red icons and plans to kill my friend.

I touch me cheek where she had kissed me. What was she trying to do anyway? I mean, if she liked me in that way, why wouldn't she just say so? And if not, why-

I'm going to go insane if I keep thinking about that.

Suddenly, an opening presents itself. The bald black man abandons his post to the back door. He opens a message window, and after surreptitiously checking to make sure nobody can see him, he starts typing. As soon as he stops looking around, I descend the steps of the bell-tower as silently as I can, and still grasping my sword, sneak up to him and around. He's still paying all his attention to his message, whatever it is. I can only see a purple box since he still has his privacy setting up. I slide up against the wall and press myself as flat as I can go. With one more glance at the man, who looks massive now that I'm down on his level, I cross the threshold of the building. I can feel my crystal buzzing in my pouch as it resumes function. I hold in a sigh of relief and take a few more steps away from the building.

Glancing back at the man, who is still looking at his message, I pull out the teleport crystal.

Whispering, I tell the crystal "Teleport, Rockport."

A blue glow surrounds me. That's not good.

A hand clamps down on my shoulder with enough force to cancel the teleportation crystal. I look up to see the man finished with his message. His axe is still lying across his back, and I have my sword drawn, but I still feel at a disadvantage.

"Uh, hi! J-Just passing through." I say feebly.

"Sure. And you just happened to stumble upon our temporary hideout and listen to our whole conversation." He says with an easy smile.

I gulp.

"Look, kid, I'm not gonna kill you. If I was, you'd have been dead in that bell tower." He lets go of me. "I know you can't trust me, but we can't talk in the open. I'm going to tell Verde to go screw- tell Verde that I'm taking a break. When I'm done with that, I'm going to go to the back of the cathedral. If you happen to be there, we'll talk."

He turns and walks back to the doorway he was watching over.

Well, he's probably getting his friends right now. I should teleport out... but he did notice me in the cathedral, and I'm not dead. Maybe it was a bluff?

Standing out here in the open isn't going to help anything either. I go around to the back of the building. Maybe I should wait for him, but have my crystal ready to go? Yeah that sounds good.

I hold out my crystal and wait. After about a minute, the man comes back. He nods to me.

"So, you decided to hear me out."

I show him the teleport crystal. "Maybe."

He smirks. "Good choice. Let's see, you're Kirito, aren't you? The boy Verde was warning us about?"

"...How did you know that?"

He opens his menu and presses the privacy button, turning it off. He point to the message box, and I can see a message from Thinker. I can't read the smaller text while it's reversed though.

"Thinker? Isn't he the leader of the Army?"

"Yeah. He's my superior. I've been tasked with making sure the Laughing Coffin guild kills as few people as possible. I'm Agil, by the way."

I remain a good distance away. "Charmed."

He nods. "Hey, I get to meet Kirito out of the deal. You may not know it, but on the lower three floors, you're almost a hero. Thinker personally told me about you saving the daughter of one of the Clearers."

"Uh huh. Say I believe you, then why are you allowed in the Army? Red marked people are strictly prohibited."

"Uh huh. I was green when I joined, but... I was tasked with locating the Laughing Coffin, and when I did, one of their members noticed me. He and I fought, and I accidentally killed him while trying to protect myself. It honestly was an accident, and it's not a feeling I want to revisit. The rest of the guild heard and came out trying to kill me. I managed to convince them I was there to join them, and it was convenient that one of their members had just kicked the bucket. That's how I got a red marker. I messaged thinker and he told me to continue with the LC and see if I could stop them from killing people."

He looks over his shoulder. "I've been kind of successful, to the point that our numbers keep going down because of 'stupid mistakes' and pre-warned victims." He focuses on my face. "You need to warn Lizbeth, then get away from her shop. We're going to hit it hard with all the new stuff she's been purchasing."

"I'm fine with warning her, I was going to do that anyway."

"Good. Now, you might want to talk to Thinker when you teleport out to confirm my words. You should go now though, and get Lizbeth out of that building."

I nod and lift up my crystal. "Teleport, Rockport!"

This time, I blink and find myself standing on the giant pad in the center of the floor. I quickly orient myself and dash off towards Lizbeth's shop.

Along the way, I send a message as suggested to Thinker. It doesn't take long for a response.

Huh. Agil was telling me the truth. That's... Good, since I know what's going on. If he hadn't been telling the truth, then we would have a massive problem, since their plans would currently be changing.

Thoughts of defensive strategies cross through my mind as I race the rest of the way out of the city and to Lizbeth's house.

Once I reach it, I grab the front door and slam it open. "Lizbeth! You need to... Asuna?"

Lizbeth and Asuna both blink at me, then look at each other. Then they both burst out laughing.

"What? What's so funny?" I look around, but nobody else is here. "Ahg, Nevermind that. A red guild is coming to raid this shop."

Both girls fall silent. "Huh? Why?"

I sigh. "I overheard them saying that you bought a lot of new equipment recently. They want to take it. Every single person in that guild is red too."

Asuna stands up abruptly. "What were you doing hanging around a red guild?!"

"Uh, I wasn't-"

"Yeah! Kirito, I thought you had more sense than that!" Lizbeth stands up less abruptly and puts her hands on her hips.

"Look, you're missing-"

"Kirito, you need to be more careful, what if they saw you?"

"One of them did, but-"

"They did?!" Asuna sinks back into her chair. "How did you escape?"

"I-"

"I don't care how he did. If you ever hang around-"

"Would you both shut up!" I cover my ears and yell.

They both cross their arms and look at me with barely restrained expressions. It's kinda scary, to be honest.

"Look, I was inside an abandoned cathedral and they trapped me inside. I wasn't able to get out. I overheard them talking about coming here. When I saw a chance to escape, I did, but the guy guarding that door is actually a plant for the Army and a lot higher level than he appears. He saw me, and we talked for a bit. I confirmed with Thinker that he works for the army as well."

They look at each other. "That's an amazing coincidence." Lizbeth says.

"I know. Technically, it's my fault since I bought all that stuff so you could make better swords. Anyway, Agil said to clear out so nobody dies."

Lizbeth lowers her hands back to her hips. "So, where do you suppose I go?"

"I don't know. How about my parents' shop? I'm sure they'll take you."

Asuna pushes her lips out and narrows her eyes. "So, you're going to be with her then?"

My neck under the collar of my shirt starts to sweat. "Uh, no. I'm going to be here."

"Didn't Agil say to clear out?" Lizbeth echoes my words back at me.

I draw Black Ice and Thief. "I can handle myself."

Asuna taps her hand against her rapier. "So can I."

I look at her askance. "I wasn't planning on you being here."

"Well, I am. So there. I'm not leaving unless you do."

Lizbeth muddles through her menus for a few seconds before a mace appears strapped across her back. "I can't let you two fight without-"

Both Asuna and I turn to her at once and say, in perfect unison, "NO!"

Lizbeth sighs, but leaves the mace across her back.

I throw up my hands in the air. "Fine, we're all leaving. Lizbeth, lock the door on the way out, we don't want them to have an easy time of it. We'll head to my parent's shop, and they should be willing to accommodate us for tonight."

Lizbeth nods glumly and heads to the back of her shop. Asuna follows her to the doorway, but no further.

I look around the shop. Aside from the times after my update, I'd only been in this shop once when Lizbeth first opened it. That was about a year ago, when she had gotten her update.

Huh, didn't Asuna get her update about a year ago? I think she mentioned it while slaying the monsters out on the field.

I toss the thought into the back of mind as Lizbeth comes out from the back loaded with swords and maces and axes. She dumps them onto the counter in front of me. I just stare at them blankly. "Planning to equip the Army?"

She snorts. "Pick them up. I'm not going to let them take anything I don't have to. The machinery and stuff isn't feasible, but I can still bring my entire inventory with me. It would suck to have to start over entirely from scratch."

I nod. "Hey, at least we got advance warning. Otherwise, you _would_ have to start over from scratch."

Lizbeth nods glumly and shoves more stuff onto the counter, all of which I tuck into my quite massive inventory. It goes up with levels, and at level twenty I had about triple that of the level one people. Normally I would've just scooped up all the stuff and tucked it into my inventory, but Lizbeth wanted me to put borrowed labels on all of them so I wouldn't keep them. I assured her I wouldn't have a problem, but she insisted. The borrowing process took a good five seconds more, and loading around a hundred weapons into my inventory took substantially longer than it should have. After I'm completely loaded up, Asuna starts piling weapons into her inventory. She had reached level fourteen through her smithing, so she has a decent carrying capacity as well. After we both have our item space loaded down with Lizbeth's goods, the blacksmith looks around her shop.

"Well, we can't carry more. The rest of this is pretty low level stuff to, so it isn't going to be too massive a loss.

Asuna places a hand on Lizbeth's shoulder. "Don't worry. You'll be back in business soon enough."

Lizbeth nods, but I see tears in her eyes.

"We should probably go. They're going to be here in an hour." I say quietly.

Asuna gently starts guarding Lizbeth out the door. I follow behind them as they turn down the path towards the town. Lizbeth sniffs before closing and locking the door, but she has a smile on her face before she turns around. "Okay! So it's like a sleep over then!"

She seems to be really good at hiding her pain. Asuna barely reacts but to blink. "Okay, yeah! That's a good way to think of it. Let's get going, we don't want to be outside the walls at night."

She wasn't referring to the walls on floor twelve of course. Each and every city has walls around it, but since floor twelve is the only one under constant assault, it's the wall people refer to most often. Most people understand which wall is meant by context.

We walk at a slower, more leisurely pace, taking time to look at flowers. Lizbeth seems to be forcing her expression less and less as time wears on. She and Asuna get to chatting like they've been friends for years. I follow a few paces behind the two. Smiling slightly as they get into discussing the merits of different rapiers. I tune them out and look up at the bottom of floor eleven. It's nice to be out during the evening, where all the filtered light is reddish in hue, and the breezes pick up. I pause my walking long enough to turn towards the sun and marvel at the ball of fire that governs our sleep cycle.

Basking in the light of the golden orb, I decide to make myself a promise. I'm going to figure out what's on floor one hundred and make this place safe for everyone live.

I've already said that I was going to do as much, but now with that promise, I wasn't allowed to back down. I wouldn't let myself back down.

"Kirito?" Asuna asks. I look back down the path to see Asuna and Lizbeth both looking back at me with inquisitive looks.

"Ah, just looking at the sunset." I rub the back of my head. "Sorry."

Lizbeth smirks. "Not trying to sneak off, were you?"

I glare at her. "With the punishment you'd dish out if I did? Hell no!"

Asuna's face scrunches up. "Wait, isn't Kirito higher level than you, Lizbeth?"

Lizbeth's smirk gets bigger. "Technically, but he's also dependent on me to service his weapons. If he hurt me or my business, he would need to find some other smith." She slides up to me and wraps her arm around my neck pulling me down as she locks in the hold. "And besides, I've had permission to beat him up for as long as I remember."

From my awkward position facing the ground, I raise a hand. "I wasn't the one who gave her permission, by the way."

Asuna tosses us both an unbelieving look before turning back towards Rockport. "Either way, let's get to the city. It's going to get dark soon."

Lizbeth releases me and I stand up straight, slowly following behind them.

We reach the edge of the city without any problems. It's kinda disconcerting that I feel the need to clarify that for each journey. I guess getting attacked does that to you. At the gate, Lizbeth checks her clock.

"Only a few minutes now." She says glumly. "Oh well. Nothing we can do about it now."

She turns to me. "So, I'm going to stop by a friend's house real quick, then I'll meet back at your place."

I shrug. "Okay."

Asuna bites her lip. "I should probably inform dad I'm okay as well."

They both wave bye and head for the teleporter. I watch them go holding my smile in place until the last shimmering lights disappear. I immediately reequip my swords and turn around.

Judging from my sprint before, I can make it to Lizbeth's shop in ten minutes.

The sun is going to fully abandon this world for the night in fifteen.

* * *

The path flies by underneath me as I reach speeds that any level one sprinter would be jealous of. For the second time today, I arrive at Liz's shop.

I draw both of my swords and stand in front of the door. It isn't long before the Laughing Coffin shows up.

Almost all of them have surprised looks on their faces. I guess if I was planning on robbing a place, I wouldn't be suspecting there to be people waiting for me, ready for a fight.

I meet the red haired man's eyes as he draws near.

"So, the boy shows himself." He sneers.

I smirk back at him. "Uh huh. I heard someone was planning on attacking my friend, so I decided to stop that from happening."

The leader laughs, followed by his subordinates. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Agil laughing heartlessly.

His look seemed to be conveying the thought, "You idiot."

I straighten up and point my swords at the incoming troops. "I challenge you to a duel!"

The leader rolls his eyes. "Right, I'm not that stupid. One on one is never a good idea especially against an unknown."

"Who said one on one? I challenge you all to a duel at once."

The man loses his cool. "You can't be serious."

"I am. Hell, you can choose the rules."

He narrows his eyes and looks around at the rest of his guild. The female clenches her fists in anticipation. Agil is frowning at me, but not making a move to stop me. The blond teenager is edging away from the rest of the group. The two helmeted men stand there stoically. The rest just kind of stand there bored.

"You know what? I'll accept your challenge. All of us against you, and we'll turn on kill protection. The deal is, you beat us, we let you go, and if we win, you give us all of your items."

I shrug. "Suits me."

Kill protection is a thing in duels that limits the damage done to a person. It is impossible to lose the last hit point on your health bar, so nobody dies, even when severely outmatched.

Of course, now I don't have to hold back whatsoever.

He presses a few keys, and I receive a confirmation window. I press yes-

"Hey! The blond kid is out of the duel!" I yell. He had managed to sneak outside of the deal radius before we had finalized the deal. A timer starts ticking down from sixty directly below the phrase "11 on 1 duel"

"Kagamine!" Red hair yells. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sensing someone out here. I'm gonna check it out. Don't worry, I'm not going to attack anyone." The blond kid, Kagamine, responds.

The rest of the Laughing Coffin spreads out to create a crescent moon around my spot in the circle. I watch as they all ready weapons and prepare for light combat. Not a single one reaches for a crystal of any kind.

Thirty seconds.

I quickly grab both swords into my left hand, open my menu with my right, and summon a healing crystal. It would come in handy after the battle is over, whether I win or lose.

Twenty seconds.

The leader turns back to the fight and stands in front of me, five subordinates on either side. "My name is Verde. What is yours?"

I almost laugh out loud. "Verde? Then why's your hair red?"

His left eye twitches. "Your name."

"Kirito." I tuck the crystal into my pouch and regrip Black Ice in my right hand, leaving Thief in my left.

Ten seconds.

I relax into a stance that will allow me to enable my fastest sword skill almost immediately after the timer goes to zero.

Five seconds.

I slide my eyes back and forth as I watch the others fan out even further to surround me.

Two seconds.

I watch Verde's feet shuffle as he sinks into a stance.

One second.

I blink.

The timer drops to zero.

My swords both immediately start glowing blue, and about seven of the eleven weapons around me activate as well.

Too bad for them my skill is built to handle crowds. I unleash the full fury of a bladed tornado as I whirl around towards Verde at top speed.

The man barely dodges my initial attack. As I abruptly change direction, I clip several of the other members of the Laughing Coffin. Three of them, despite the blow being a glancing one at best, fall down, only the barest sliver of health keeping them alive.

As my attack finishes, the Laughing Coffin stops looking so laid back and start looking a lot more focused.

"Not as easy as you'd think I would be, huh?" My mouth curls into a nasty smile.

"Lucky shot, kid, lucky shot." Verde says. He gestures with his left hand and Agil, Driver and the other helmeted man all approach me threateningly.

Agil catches my eye. I nod my head in understanding. He can't go easy, because then his cover would get blown.

I take two measured steps back and ready another sword skill.

Driver makes the first move. He unsheathes his long sword, a two handed affair that looks like it was designed to inflict pain, rather than just cut. His swing takes him around in an arc which I easily duck under. That's when Agil's axe comes for me down low. Instead of jumping straight back up, I leap for Driver and knock him back with me as the second helmeted man's mace comes crashing down on the spot I would've been in. Instead of smashing my head in, all he succeeding in doing was losing his balance and falling into Agil. Both go down in a pile. I roll to my feet and stab Driver, reducing his health to the knockout point. I draw Thief from the damaged armor and face Verde.

Verde isn't looking too hot, to be honest. His smirk is completely gone, replaced with a grimace of determination.

"So, you are as powerful as the rumors say." He comments.

"I wouldn't know. Spent too much time out on the wall fighting things. What do the rumors say?" I taunt.

"They say that you're less than a month from your update. They say you're level 15 already. They say you're on the leader board."

"I can't say anything about that last one, but the first one is true. My level though? I'm not level fifteen."

I let Black Ice slip into a single handed strike while I prepare to guard with Thief. The blade glows brighter and brighter until I release the skill. My feet leap ahead and my sword flies straight and true-

Only to be deflected by another sword from the side. I instinctively raise Thief up to deflect the new blade, but its wielder is strong. A quick glance to the side reveals the female Laughing Coffin member in a full on rage, blood vessels almost popping out of her face as she grits her teeth hard.

I disengage our swords, and her falls and cleaves the earth where it hits.

"Meet Lisanna. She's my personal bodyguard." Verde says calmly. "She's the second member to join the Laughing Coffin, and easily the best sword fighter here."

She lifts her blade back up to ready position and spits to the side. "If you want to get to him, you need to go through me."

I ready Thief and Black Ice. "Gladly."

Both of our weapons glow with energy, mine blue and hers red. Her attack is a massive swing at my head, one I'm hard pressed to dodge, and instead have to take on the blade of Thief. A warning pops into my sight about a massive drop in durability of that weapon.

I have heard of that move, called sword breaker. Normally, a swordsman or woman uses a buster sword for it, but it seems Lisanna has managed to repurpose it for her long sword. I back away a few steps and watch her closely. She readies for another strike but doesn't start charging a skill yet. She's probably waiting for the sword breaker to recharge.

I subtly look around at the rest of the field. Out of the original eleven, only six are left standing. Agil had stood up, but the guy that stumbled into him hadn't. I wasn't sure if that was on purpose, but it certainly helped.

I tuck Thief into my sheath across my back and quickly pull out another blade, one of the many backups Lizbeth had made me. It gleams in the dull light from the stars. It looks like it's identical to Black Ice, but it doesn't have a name and isn't as powerful.

Suddenly, Lisanna's sword starts glowing red again. She charges at me with speed rivaling mine. I bring up my spare just in time to deflect the attack, and it shatters upon impact. Lisanna is left slightly off balance, and I take the opportunity to swipe of her ribcage. I get in a few slashes, but she's got too much health for me to take her out like that.

It does get her to take a step back, and I exploit the opening as best I can, stabbing Black Ice into a hole in her guard.

This time, Verde deflects my sword away from Lisanna. I don't waste time leaping away from him as he guards Lisanna as she recovers. He motions with three of his fingers and the four remaining henchmen, including Agil, close in. I don't let my eyes wander from Verde as they close in. I quickly pull out yet another backup sword and hold it in an upside down fashion, so one blade is facing forwards and one backwards. Then I sink low and jump straight up.

Six faces watch me soar up, spinning majestically in the air.

That's when the four henchmen left drop. Verde's eyes snap back to my position, the illusion gone.

My coat ruffles in the breeze. I smile as Verde's eyes bulge and his hand clenches around the hilt of his sword.

"You... What are you?" He says brokenly.

"I'm just your average swordsman." I ready Black Ice and my backup.

"No, you can't be. Not with skills like that. Are you from a guild?" He raises his sword halfway, putting up a pitiable defense.

"Nope. Fresh out of the city. You're just that bad." I flip the blade around and take a running leap at the crimson haired man.

Mid leap, his desolate expression morphs to one of glee. Too late, I realize he wanted me to active my sword skill.

He drops below my lunge and brings his sword up into my chest. It doesn't pierce my light armor, but the impact is enough to knock the wind out of my lungs. I go stumbling backwards as he strides up to me. "You seem to be powerful, but you're too arrogant. You just said you're fresh out of the city? You need to learn to bow to your superiors. Challenging me bought you some time, but Lisanna and I are more than enough to handle you now."

I regain my balance and watch as Lisanna also gets to her feet and lifts her sword into the stance for another sword breaker.

I pull both of my swords close to my body and wait for them to make their move.

Predictably, Lisanna swings first. Her sword comes around in an arc, but this time I know how to dodge it. I let the blow swing quickly under me and slice downwards at her head. The blade connects with her skull with a crunch.

Her eyes roll up and she passes out on the ground, defeated.

I swipe my blade back into position as I bring my guard up and face the last remaining member of the Laughing Coffin.

He readies his blade, but I have an easier solution.

"You were smart not to do one on one." I comment as I sheathe my backup sword. "It wouldn't have ended well for you."

Verde snarls. "It's not over yet!"

I flick my left hand at him, glowing needles streaking towards him with unerring accuracy. He manages to deflect two of them, but the third spikes him in the arm and causes paralysis. His limp form hits the ground and loses grip on his sword. I walk over unmolested and kick away his sword, sending it skittering along the cobble road outside of Lizbeth's shop.

"Actually, for you? Over. Completely over."

Instead of wasting my durability on him, I punch his face in, causing him to black out and for the duel to close.

"Winner: Kirito" flashes in the air above the time the duel took to finish, 3 minutes and twenty eight seconds.

I look at the bodies strewn around. I don't have the means to restrain them, really. I better send a message to the Army. The real Army.

I type up a quick message to Thinker and remain with my swords drawn, just in case one of them decides to wake up.

"Kirito!"

I whirl as I hear... Is that Asuna? If it is, I'm in deep trouble.

"Kirito! Hel-"

Yup, definitely Asuna. What was she doing here?

Suddenly, my mind leaps back to the start of the duel. Kagamine! I had forgotten him!

I plow through the bush and-

Oh hell. Kagamine is standing with a sword in either hand, one at Asuna's throat, and one at Lizbeth's throat.

"I wouldn't come closer if I was you." He smiles nastily. "They're both so pretty. How come you get both, and I get neither?"

I lower my sword until its point is almost scraping the ground. "What do you want?"

"Oh, I'm giving you a choice. You can only have one of them, and I get the other." he swings his blades about, such that Asuna has to lean backwards a bit to avoid being cut.

As my mind resists panic, a small portion of my logic continues to function well enough for me to pick up that Asuna and Lisbeth are both tied and gagged.

I look between the three of them. "So, I have to pick, huh?"

His smile splits his face. "I knew you'd see it my way-"

His eyes widen as the sword sticking out of his chest slowly sinks deeper into his form. "Huh? But... How'd you get over here?"

"Coat of illusions. It's pretty useful, wouldn't you say?"

He collapses to the ground. I hurriedly untie Asuna and toss her sword off of Kagamine's limp form. Then I untie Lizbeth.

She gets up and promptly smacks me. I have to actively resist swinging my sword at her.

"What were you thinking?! You could have been killed, Kirito! I don't care if you're high level, badass swordsman! You can't just go against a red guild!" She screams in my face.

I pull up my health bar, which is less than half gone. "I defeated twelve of twelve, taking minimal damage."

"You. Could. Have. Been. Killed!" She screams, punctuating each word with a swing. I drop my sword so I don't reflexively cut her head off.

"So could you! You weren't supposed to be here!"

"Uh huh! Neither were you! You were supposed to guide us to your parent's house, and help me pick up the pieces in the morning! Instead you go off on your own, giving the both of us a heart attack. Good thing I figured out what you were doing-"

"Good thing? All you did was get captured! If you hadn't been here, Kagamine would've been in that duel with me! Every single one of them would be up there, and you two would be nice and snug in bed."

"Um, guys?" Asuna says weakly. Lizbeth and I look at her, still huffing from all the shouting.

"He isn't breathing."

As we watch, Kagamine shatters into a million particles. The glasslike faces dance in the dying breeze, blowing past my face and blurring my vision.

With a mounting sense of dread, I look up.

My marker, green for less than a day, has turned red.


	5. Chapter 5: Red Player

I'm sorry this took so long to make. It's a combination of three things. First, the first four chapters were produced during spring break and I had a lot of free time in which to write. Second, since college has started back up, I've been struggling to find any free time, especially with all my midterms. Third, this chapter was hard as hell to write.

I did say that this story was going to update slowly once spring break was over, but I didn't expect two and a half weeks for one chapter!

I'm not sure when the next one is going up, but I'm shooting for before the end of April.

Enjoy!

* * *

(Kirito's perspective)

All three of us stand there as if frozen in place. Asuna is staring at the blank spot where Kagamine had died. Lizbeth is trembling slightly, staring out into the distance. Me? I'm staring at the end of my life. My marker has turned red, and that can't be reversed. The marker turns slowly as I watch it, as if mocking me with its crimson facets.

"What..." Lizbeth says. "I-I don't understand. It wasn't m-my fault he died, was it?" Her voice quakes and she takes a step back as if there's something in front of her. I snap out of my trance and face her. I almost tell her that it was indeed her fault, but...

I look at my hands, covered in black leather and then back at my marker. My life is effectively over, what with the severely limited roles of a red marked man. What should I do? I look over to Asuna. She's slowly coming to her senses in a lot less of a panic, which is a relief. I look back to wide eyed Lizbeth.

"No, Lizbeth, it was my fault."

She rounds on me. "It's your fault? Of course it is! Everyone knows it!" Her eyes get a manic gleam. "You dumbass! If you hadn't tried to fight them, nobody would've died!"

I duck my head as she draws her mace and attempt to clobber me clumsily. Having little to no combat experience, attempting to attack without utilizing skills isn't going to work against even the weakest of enemies. She continues to scream at me, quickly devolving into intelligibility. I have to unsheathe my backup sword to deflect her attacks, but I resist doing anything even vaguely offensive. After all, a player killer had fallen to only one strike from me, and Lizbeth was only level one or two. Brushing her with the blade might be enough to send her into the red zone.

She continues to attack me for a good five minutes. I stand there, unmoving, taking each blow as it comes. My wrist turns to jelly and the sword's durability is halved before she stops. At that time the mace in her hands shatters from overuse and she slumps to the ground and starts sobbing. I cautiously reach a hand down and place it on her shoulder in what I hope is a comforting manner. She just sobs harder. I look over to Asuna, but she's still staring at the ground- Aw hell, she's crying too!

I can't deal with crying! Especially when I'm the cause!

"Look, Lizbeth-"

"No!" She yells. Then, more quietly, "Just... Go away, OK?"

I let go of her shoulder. She relaxes a little bit, and for some reason, that reaction hurts.

I turn my head to see Asuna still staring at the ground, or maybe her sword? She must have felt my stare, because she looks up.

"I... I'm useless, aren't I?"

"What? No!" Where did that come from? "You're plenty good at killing monsters and cooking."

She slumps her shoulders. "But I can't protect people. Not even myself."

"You just need more training."

Her eyes look at mine. "But then, won't I end up like you?"

Silence descends. We continue to stare at each other for half a minute.

"I thought so." She breaks eye contact. "So, I... Thanks for your help Kirito, but-"

Three big men in full Army regalia pop out of the brush and surround me. Seeing as everyone in the army wears the same mid level gear, I can't judge their levels.

A fourth man walks out of the brush and up to Asuna and Lizbeth. "Are you two alright?"

Asuna nods, but Lizbeth starts crying harder again.

The three men lower their spears at me, one of them almost poking a hole in me. "Drop your weapons!" the one in front of me demands.

I shrug and drop both Black Ice and my backup sword to the ground.

"Including your inventory!"

I silently open my inventory and press the clear inventory button. About half a ton of steel appears out of thin air and lands with a resounding crash that leaves my ears ringing. The weapons leave a ring between me and the Army guards, a ring of steel shining in the light of the moon.

As soon as my ears clear, I can hear a lot more voices. I look around and see that the ten survivors of the Laughing Coffin are trussed up, and Agil is talking to Thinker. One of the guards behind me puts cuffs around my wrists and starts pushing me towards Thinker. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Asuna helping Lizbeth to her feet.

Thinker looks over at me. "So, here's the vigilante- what happened?" His voice becomes sharp as his mind registers the color of my marker and the cuffs on my wrists.

"One of them decided to threaten two of my friends' lives. He offered me a choice between them, and I took the third option."

"And you killed him."

I bow my head. "Yes. It wasn't on purpose, but that doesn't mean much, now does it."

Thinker shakes his head. "What am I going to do with you?"

"I believe execution is the punishment for red players." I say in the most detached tone I have.

Thinker sighs. "Teleport him back to Rockport with the others. Put him in his own cell though. Right now, we need to get a statement from those two women over there."

I feel my face go blank as I'm led off to an arch that has people pouring back and forth through it, seemingly out of nowhere. I have heard of these corridors, used to ferry large quantities of people to a specific location, but since they're so hard to get and expensive, only the large guilds like the army can afford them. It's essentially a mass teleport crystal.

It comes out straight into the army's HQ. I look around at all of the curious faces of a crowd gathered to see the arch. I don't see anyone I recognize, but a few of them point to me and whisper to each other. I was at the back of the criminal parade, and I can see the Laughing Coffin members getting jeered at as they pass.

I think that's when it truly sunk in. I'm not going to live to the age of sixteen. I'm going to die because I was stupid and challenged a PK guild. No matter that I won, I was still going to die alongside them.

I avert my eyes and count the paces as I continue to be pushed towards the HQ.

"Hey, isn't that the guy who was on the wall?"

I glance up to see what I would've called a random bystander.

"Hey! It is! It's the Kirito guy!"

People start to push to get a good look at me. The jeers from before were general insults hurled at red players. Now, they turned personal. Very personal.

"Hey! I thought you were cool!"

"Huh, that girl was probably getting blackmailed to be his friend."

"What was her name? Asuna?"

"Yeah, the daughter of that Clearer."

"What was a girl like her hanging around a murderer for?"

"Maybe he killed her?"

I snap at the last one. My arms strain against my cuffs and I round on the last speaker. "For your information, those guys-" I jerk my head at the Laughing Coffin members. "took Asuna hostage. I wasn't given much choice."

The man I had confronted sneers at me. "You red players are all liars. I bet you raped her and killed her to hide the-"

The cuffs snap in two behind me. My arms close around the guy's throat and constrict, my relatively massive strength crushing his windpipe and causing his health bar to drain rapidly. It stops about a quarter of the way down, the city protection kicking in.

"I. Protected. Her." I growl, then throw him to the ground. He bounces once before coming to a stop.

I turn back around and face the nearest guard, who is visibly shaking. "I'm going to need to be recuffed. Use two pairs."

"Y-Yessir."

I blink. The guard must be so out of it that he thinks I'm a superior. Not that it matters. I put my hands behind my back, and feel two pairs of cuffs ratchet shut.

The crowd is entirely silent from that point on, and slightly less people have the nerve to stand there watching as I pass.

* * *

I spend ten hours in a featureless cell. The door is made of solid steel, and is the only thing not made of featureless brown rock. Seriously, there's no color variation at all, it's all one depressing grey-brown. Sleep wouldn't come easily, so I spent most of it staring at a perfectly blank ceiling. At least the intact cuffs were off, so I could lie down easily.

The doer opens with a loud groan, and I sit up. In the doorway stands Thinker.

"I've talked to your friends and Agil. They each had some very interesting things to say about your performance yesterday."

I shrug, the remains of my first pair of cuffs clinking against the floor. "It doesn't matter much. I'm dead anyway."

Tinker shakes his head. "You seem remarkably calm about this."

"Not like getting angry is going to help." I fall back to a lying down position. "So, when is my execution?"

"You aren't getting one." Thinker opens his inventory and dumps out seven swords. Black Ice, Thief, the buster sword, the magical gem one, and my three backups are suddenly at my feet. He also puts a few other items I recognized as mine into the pile, like a healing crystal.

I look up at his face, which is set into an unreadable mask. "Why are you giving these to me?"

"First, I have question. Would you consider sending a person to floor 13 all alone an execution of sorts?"

"Well, for most people, yeah, but-"

"You're sentence is to clear floor 13 and make it safe for habitation once again. You will be given no support, and you will not be allowed to return. Any questions?"

I look down at the pile of gear and slowly grab Black Ice. I check its durability, and it's completely repaired.

"Lizbeth, once we told her about your situation, asked for your confiscated weapons so she could repair them." Tinker says, as if reading my mind. "She was upset at first, but once she calmed down she agreed to it readily."

"Who else knows about my sentence?" I say as I start placing my gear in my inventory. Two healing crystals, one teleport, three health potions, an anti-paralysis-

"Your parents, Lizbeth, and Asuna all know, along with several of the members of the Army including Agil. Most of the public won't be informed."

Oh, right. Agil. "What's going to happen to Agil now that the Laughing Coffin is done?"

"He's been granted a special pardon, he has to wear a helmet on inside the city at all times, and lives outside the walls. He also has two guards watching him all the time. Trust me, he was glad he got out of the situation, but his quality of life did drop sharply."

I nod. "Fair enough. So, how am I getting out of the city?"

Thinker's mask drops for a second and he grins. "Why, you're going to escape! See, when I leave this cell, I accidentally left it open."

"...Isn't that counter intuitive to nobody knowing?"

"Nobody will know that we let you out, which is what's important. Now, I'm going to go. Try not to seriously injury my men on your way out."

I laugh mirthlessly. "It's a city. Nobody's going under seventy-five percent even if I try."

The opposite wasn't true though. Once you become a red player, the city protection no longer works. So I would be defending myself from a city of immortals while running for my life. Despite myself, I can feel a grin spreading across my face.

"So, I'm basically a solo Clearer now, huh."

Thinker nods. "Good luck, Kirito."

Closes the door, but true to his word, it doesn't lock.

I strap both Thief and Black Ice to my back and put the rest in my inventory. I tuck a teleport crystal and a healing crystal into my pouch at my hip. I take a deep breath and draw Thief. "Okay, time to go to work."

I shove open the door and watch as the guards on either side step backwards to let me go. These two are probably in on it then. I nod as I race past, but they don't respond. I race through the hallways, following the path I used to get into here. Some people are startled as I race past, but nobody gets a good enough look at me to realize something is wrong, or, at least realize exactly what is wrong. I was almost at the exit when somebody had the presence of mind to sound an alarm, but by then there was nothing they could do to stop me. I push open the main doors to find-

That's a large crowd. I stop short and look for a gap, but they form a sheer wall of people that would be impossible to break through.

Of course, I can jump over them, but that's asking for disaster.

"There he is! I knew he was too strong to be locked up! Let's get him!"

I turn to see a burly looking man with a meat cleaver walking towards me menacingly. Wait, so a whole mob had decided to camp outside the army's headquarters just in case I escaped?

...Well, I guess their fears were kind of founded. I wasn't planning on escaping, but they sure succeeded in hindering me.

I turn around and leap straight up and grab hold of the roof overhang. I haul myself up before anyone is able to grab me and pull me back down. Fortunately, the roofs of Rockport are very close together, so I might be able to make it all the way to the teleporter of this city without touching the ground. I apply my full speed and head towards to the center of the city.

Rooftop to rooftop. Jumping. Dodging chimneys and arrows. This goes on for ten minutes as the glow from the center of the city gets closer.

Shouts resound in the streets below me, cries spreading the news of my escape barely keeping up with my escape. I keep my eyes forward, locked onto the telepad. Getting distracted would just put me in more danger. Staying inside the city any longer than I have too is a bad idea.

Once I'm within two hundred feet of the teleporter, the buildings abruptly stop, and a wide open park area stands between me and my target.

Filling that park are dozens of people all looking around at to find out who is yelling off in the distance. Several fingers are pointed up at me. I watch the word of my location spread. Some of the weaker-willed civilians turn around and start running in a panic.

I hop down from the roofs and bolt for the teleporter. A ring of guards stand in between the pad and me, and each of them has a long spear. That was bad. Their formations and weapons meant that I would be unable to reach the pad on foot, and if I tried jumping over them, their reach would allow them to block me that way as well. Behind them, few confused people are poking their heads up to see why they're not allowed to get off the teleporter pad.

"HEY!"

Every single face turns to see... Asuna? What's she doing here?

Wait, now's my chance!

I dash as fast as my current level would allow and take a flying leap. Only one of the guards catches on in time to notice me and raise his spear, but I can easily dodge only one.

I land on the golden surface of the pad and yell to the floor above us "Teleport, Anaheim!"

One city fades, and another appears. My legs barely find purchase before I'm taking off like a rocket. I've heard some horror stories about attempting to leave a pad before the teleport was finished, but I've never encountered a problem. In reflection, it's probably so you don't end up slamming into people on the other side.

There aren't any guards stationed around the pad but I'm sure the ones from level 10 are coming through as I run for my life. I make a beeline for the wall.

Ironically, the wall isn't very good at keeping people in. After tearing through the housing district I had memorized these past two weeks, I had only to climb a single set of stairs and leap off the other side.

The twenty foot drop is nothing to someone with a high agility stat. It took two points off of my health, but when it's over two thousand, that's nothing.

Several of the guards saw me, but what were they going to do? If I was anyone else, I might as well have committed suicide. Even if they wanted me back, they would risk themselves to both wildlife and me by coming outside the walls.

Despite myself, I smile. For the first time, I was going to be free. I was going to be able to fight and Clear! My dream had come true!

I let loose a laugh that probably echoed all the way back to Anaheim.

* * *

Let me explain the marker system in more detail.

Everyone starts out as a green marked person. For the first five years of your life, your marker can't turn any other color, and there are other restrictions so that you can't exploit that fact. I'll get into it if it ever becomes relevant. Then, you turn six and you get your first update. Now, you can wield practice weapons that can't hurt anything above level 2, and you can turn orange if you attempt to hurt someone. This lasts until you're fifteen and a half, and then you get your second update. That's where I am. Obviously, you can become a murderer after your second update. At this point, you're an adult and have all the trappings that go with it.

Now, cities only protect green persons totally. A green marked person in a city can't fall below three quarters health. Orange markers can be beaten within a pixel of their lives, but still can't be killed. There was a case where an orange person was driven to that state and then forced out of the city, where he got eaten by some monster. Now, orange people are criminals and are treated as such. If a green marker gets rough within city limits, he might be reduced to orange status, or if he steals, or any of a variety of crimes.

Ironically, once a person changes color, the rest of everyone is able to wail on them without punishment. For example, an orange person can be beaten ruthlessly until he turns green. There was an incident with that as well, but I don't remember it properly. Red marked people though, they have strange rules. Within a city, they're fair game. Green markers can freely kill red markers as long as it's within city limits. That's why the crowd was willing to try to take my down in Rockport. They had nothing to fear, I couldn't kill them and they could kill me without penalty. Outside the walls of any city is a different matter. If you are not attacked by the red person prior to your killing blow, you become a red marked person yourself. If they attack you, or, if you're married and they've harmed your wife or family, you can freely attack them as if you were inside the city walls.

Since I stabbed Kagamine without him striking a single blow, it was seen as a murder, and so I got a red marker.

As of is time, there is no known way to get rid of a red marker. It's a permanent stain on your reputation. Markers can be hidden by hats though, so if it's absolutely necessary, I can risk my life to go into a city and hope I'm not recognized.

Duels are the exception to the marker system. Inside a duel, two green players can attempt to kill each other within the city limits. Each duel involves two or more people, and all contestants have to agree on the rules. In my duel, we chose orange level health point drain (down to one HP) so nobody died, but it would take more than one hit to be disqualified and summarily knocked out. Anyone without their second update is unable to duel, but there is a way for five through fifteens to practice in an arena, but those duels are always green marker matches with blunt training weapons and the one hit rule on.

The important thing to remember is that duels can only be started if all duelists accept. If a single one decides to give up, the whole duel is cancelled. If the remaining people want to try to make a new duel, they can, but they have to start over from scratch.

Once a duel is initiated, a force field pops up, making it impossible for outside interference.

Kagamine left before the field popped up, which should've triggered the abort sequence. I had heard that with high enough stealth, you can do that.

Now that I'm outside the walls of any city, I don't have to worry about being attacked. Most people are more sensible than to attack a red marker without being provoked, seeing as under the army's rule, red markers warrant the death penalty. If they decided to attack me and kill me in my sleep, they'd just be transferring the red marker to themselves.

No, I just had to worry about monsters, and for some reason, they are all avoiding me. I guess they don't forget easily. I'm currently up in a tree watching the stars peek between this floor and the next one up.

Despite the fact that all I would see is flat grey metal, I look upwards. "I wonder if the hundredth level has a roof. Maybe it has sun all the time."

I let my arm hang down and close my eyes. Maybe answers will come, but for now, I need sleep.

And for the first time in a while, the darkness of sleep came easily and happily.

* * *

It takes me a minute to place where I am when my eyes open and it's already light. A quick glance to either side places me up in a tree about two miles away from the walls of Anaheim. I carefully slide out of the tree and land softly. Today, my journey truly starts.

I unsheathe one of my backup swords. No sense in wasting my good weapons just yet, not knowing when or even if I can get them repaired. Facing west, I take one last look back at the city of floor twelve before turning back to the challenge ahead of me. Looming in the distance is giant pillar leading upwards towards the next floor.

I had sorted through my gear last night, and found that there was a map of this floor in its entirety, probably from back when we had made it all the way to the thirties. It clearly has a few things marked, like the dungeon entrance and several nests where the monsters appeared. On the cylinder that leads into the next level is the word BOSS. According to a footnote on the bottom of the map, this floor was like floor five in that no matter how hard they searched, Clearers were unable to cleanse this area of monsters. I put the map display away and continue walking, with only a slight correction in direction.

Time to clear this level.

* * *

(Asuna's perspective)

I'm sitting in a cell. Why? Because I did something stupid.

Why is it that everything I do recently turns out poorly? Someone tattoo "Idiot" on my forehead already.

Okay, yes, I did get to level 13 while working with Kirito, but that was because he saved me every time I was about to die.

My cell door opens and a large man steps inside. I look up to see Thinker frowning down at me.

"Asuna, please don't take this the wrong way, but what were you thinking?"

I shrug. "I was helping him escape."

Thinker rests his face in his hand. "And, in doing so, you raised suspicion about yourself. It hasn't even been a full day, and some people are speaking the rumors that you were helping him escape."

"I was."

"Yes, and that's a problem. See, aiding and abetting red marked people is a crime, just not one that turns your marker orange. Having the daughter of one of the high ups of the foremost clearer guild publicly seen helping him... Let's just say people are getting restless."

I fold my hands up and give him a condescending stare. Even though he's a hardened member of the Army, he still gets edgy. My stare was known to do that to people. "I couldn't just let him get recaptured, now could I?"

Thinker shakes his head. "You could have. I had my men already heading to get him and 'accidentally' let him go."

I shift in my seat. "And how was I to know that?"

Thinker slams a hand down on the table, causing me to jump. "Asuna, you weren't supposed to be on floor ten at all! You were supposed to be inside your own guild hall, under the protection of Kuradeel!" He growls. Slowly, he calms himself down with deep breaths and straightens up. "Sorry about that. My life's been a bit harsh recently, what with all of these developments involving Kirito. It's hard to stand there and take flak for rules you didn't create."

I nod. "Sorry for causing you trouble." I curl my hands into fists. "It won't happen again."

"I'm sure that it will happen again." Thinker says, a smile creeping onto his face. "After all, Kirito seems dead set on actually clearing floors. Once he clears floor 13, you should join him."

I blink. "Wait, me? I'm not strong enough!" I say, panic starting to rise in my throat.

"That's why I got you a party." Thinker smirks. He steps away from the door and lets me see that there are four people standing outside my cell. The first is Lizbeth. She has on some pretty heavy armor and has a mace strapped to her hip. Next is Klein, who has the biggest smirk on his face and a Ziatchi strapped to his hip. Third-

"Why is Kuradeel here?!" I shout pointing a finger in his direction.

Thinker looks down at me with a confused expression "He's your bodyguard. Of course he's going with you."

Kuradeel smiles. "It is my pleasure to accompany you, my princess."

My eye twitches. "I told you never to call me that. Ever."

Klein clasps his hands together and rocks onto one leg. "Aw, such a cute couple!"

I attempt to deck him, but Thinker grabs the back of my shirt in time to stop my attack from doing more than sending a gust of air in his direction.

Even Lizbeth has a smirk by this point. It gets wiped off her face by a noise like a lightning strike. Every single person in this cramped space simultaneously gets a message.

"Floor 13 has been cleared. Teleportation to floor 13, Galetown, has been opened."

All six of us are frozen. I slide my eyes from the message to see mixed looks all around.

It's Thinker who breaks the silence. "He... already cleared 13. How long has your guild been trying to clear that?" He asks Klein.

Klein closes his message and bends over laughing. "I knew it! That idiot is going to surpass even Heathcliff at this rate!" He collapses to his knees and starts to pant between his laughter. "We've been trying... for two years... and he does it... in three weeks!"

Klein starts getting more messages as, presumably, other Clearers get over their shock and start trying to figure out who finally cleared it.

I turn to Thinker. "I would like my sword back now."

He opens his inventory and pulls out my weapons. I collect them with haste and strap the sword to my side.

I march to the door and face the rest of my assigned party.

"I'm going after Kirito. Who's coming?"

Lizbeth motions with her mace. Klein stands back up and flashes his signature grin. Kuradeel-

"Are you sure? I mean, back in Anaheim-" He starts.

"Does me leaving to find Kirito hurt your feelings?" I ask, cutting him off.

He gets the slimiest smile on his face. "Yes! I'm glad you see it my-"

"Good! I'm not wasting another second. Kuradeel, feel free to stay behind. Let's go."

I march out the door, and all four follow me, one whimpering something about how it isn't fair.

I lead what I had determined was my group straight to the pad and step onto it.

"Teleport, Galetown!" I yell.

In a flash of light, I appear in... a bustling city?

All five of us look around in bewilderment.

"What? How did all these people get here so fast?" I cry, not comprehending.

Klein walks up to a blacksmith. The blacksmith turns to face Klein and asks "Yes?" before he can even open his mouth.

"When did you get here?" Klein asks bluntly.

The blacksmith seems confused by the question for a minute. "I've always been here."

Klein stands there dumbstruck long enough for the blacksmith to get tired and walk away.

"What?" He yells. "That's not possible! Kirito literally just unlocked this floor!"

The hairs on the back of my neck prick up. I spin around and draw my weapon-

"Kirito!" I shout.

Kirito steps out of the shadows and sheathes his sword onto his back. "What are you guys doing here?" He says, a mildly disturbed look on his face as he scans the street.

"Looking for you." Klein says. "Looks like we found you."

"No, I just followed to yelling." Kirito says, now with his back towards the party. "You guys better go back. This city is haunted."

"Haunted?" Kuradeel laughs. "Right. That's not true."

Kirito turns halfway around. "Who the hell are you?"

"He's my bodyguard." I growl. "And what do you mean by haunted?"

"Well..."

* * *

(Kirito's perspective)

It took me less than a day to clear a dungeon. That's got to be a record. I guess it wasn't only me, parts have already been pacified, I should probably count the time used to create the map, but still.

I had left the safety of the walls behind only 24 hours earlier. And now the next floor was open.

There was a large creature at the end of the dungeon, called the Scorpion Queen. She was level 21 and had three of those Death Scorps guarding her. The Death Scorps were easily tricked into stabbing each other with their paralysis poison, and thankfully it left me with only one monster to fight. She may have been more powerful than the other scorpions, but I didn't get much of a chance to find out. See, the problem with all of these scorpions is that they have these weak little tails to support their main offensive weapon. All I did was raise one sword to block and use another to slice the tail off at the small joint, dodge the claws, and it was in the bag. When I cleared the so called boss room, I found a new door on the opposite side of the room that I had entered from. Through that door, I had entered Galetown.

Galetown had been entirely deserted when I got there. Seeing a city completely empty is a nerve-wracking feeling, let me say. I headed for the middle of the city and found the teleporter locked down with a glowing panel asking to unlock it. When I pressed the button, it had made a large announcement that floor thirteen was unlocked.

It had also unleashed the ghosts.

As soon as the announcement faded, I had turned around and found myself face to face with a female I had never met before. Seeing as a still had a sword in my hand, I may have accidentally poked her, and she just disappeared! Since then, I've been poking these people, and they all just disappear. Even weirder, they don't talk unless I speak to them. The entire city is silent except for me.

"Until I met up with you guys." I say. "These people don't even put up a fight, don't seem to react to me trying to kill them. I accidentally stabbed a mother, and her children almost didn't even notice!"

Klein frowns. "But, we're inside a city. They shouldn't be able to be killed under any circumstance."

I look at Klein. "Maybe the citywide protection is off?"

He nods slowly. "We should test it."

Four pairs of eyes turn to me.

"I can't help! I'll kill you guys with a brush from my blade!"

Klein snorts. "Sure you will. Hey, give me your best shot." He settles into a blocking stance.

Instead of drawing my sword, I raise a fist and charge at him. His eyes widen and he switches his defensive strategy, but it's too late. My fist hits his gut-

He goes sprawling backwards to the ground, exactly seventy five percent his HP remaining, along with a warning floating above his head about attacking green players.

It takes Klein a few minutes to catch his breath, the overflow from the damage I dealt him turned into sheer knockback force. He raises his left arm and says, "Yeah, protection's still on."

Lizbeth takes two strides up to me and smacks me hard. "I can't believe you did that!" She says angrily. "You could've killed him!"

"Yeah." I rub my face. "But I didn't, which is what is important."

Lizbeth narrows her eyes. "Setting that aside, what does that mean about all these people?"

I smirk. "Obviously ghosts. They aren't protected by city rules, they disappear on the slightest touch, and they're way too quiet to be a bustling city."

Asuna rolls her eyes. "That's the stupidest explanation ever. They're not ghosts."

I turn to her. "And why not?"

"Ghosts have at minimum two health bars, and nobody has ever seen one lower than floor twenty five." She says matter-of-factly.

Kuradeep (or whatever his name is) turns to Asuna and starts whining. "Asuna, you really shouldn't tell guild secrets like that."

Asuna sighs and ignores him. "So, what's next?"

"We clear out the gh- the not-ghosts and get people up here." I say. "Until people inhabit this floor, it's prone to be retaken by the monsters." I yawn.

Lizbeth points to an inn. "Let's hole up for the night. It's getting late anyway."

Reluctantly, I agree. The innkeeper is charging surprisingly little for each room, so I get five, one for each of us. For some reason, I had the crazy feeling that I should just stab the innkeeper and take the rooms for the night instead of paying, but I dismiss that feeling and trudge up to bed.

* * *

The next morning, we all get up and buy something to eat. Kuradeep keeps eyeing me with suspicion, but aside from that, the food is nice.

"Kirito," Asuna begins. "We are joining your party."

"Party? What party?" I say. "It's not like I'm actually doing this officially or anything. Also, I'm done with my job for the moment."

"Well, too bad, we're forming a new clearer guild right here, right now." She stands up in her seat and places her hands on the table, causing her small frame to loom over us.

I sip my drink. "You know it's going to be danger-"

A butter knife flashes white and almost stabs my nose. I track my eyes up to see Asuna glaring at me.

"Fine." I grumble. "But I'm not responsible for any of your deaths."

She removes the knife from my face and sits back down. "So, what should we call our guild?" She asks cheerily. It's scary how fast she can switch emotions.

I tune them out and continue eating my breakfast. A few other customers come in...

I jump out of my seat, my right hand groping for my currently unequipped sword.

Lizbeth, who somehow had more prudence than me, had her mace out. "What! Who!" She yells.

I point to one of the newcomers. "I... I stabbed her yesterday!"

Asuna starts visibly shifting in her seat, and Klein draws his sword from its sheathe. Durakeel looks around in confusion.

I deftly draw my sword out of my menu without taking my eyes off of the mysterious woman. When Black Ice was in my hand, I start approaching her slowly.

As soon as I'm within ten feet of her, he head snaps to point at me. She doesn't say anything, just stares.

"Excuse me." I say. "But how are you not dead?"

I hear several facepalms behind me, but I ignore them.

The woman looks puzzled. "I've always been here." She finally responds, and then she goes back to staring.

Everyone else in 'my' group stands there silent as rocks until Asuna decides to break the silence.

"What."


	6. Chapter 6: Dragons

Honestly, I had wanted to spend a little bit of time investigating these ghost apparition things. After breakfast, Asuna and Liz had warped back to level ten, Kugareel had followed soon after. Klein and I had decided to search the city, but he was called off by his guild, something about a PK guild. That left me with two options. I could search an entire city by myself, or go out beyond the walls and level. Not knowing what there is out there is pretty dangerous though.

On the outside of the walls, treacherous mountain terrain makes forward movement more or less upward movement. The city of Galetown is built into a valley, and I'm pretty sure that the walls are unnecessary, given that anything that could successfully scale these sheer cliffs could probably scale the twenty foot walls surrounding this city.

My hand gropes around and finds another handhold. I silently congratulate myself on having put enough points into strength to be able to do this. Otherwise this would be one hell of a fall when my strength ran out. I tilt my head upwards and estimate the distance up. About seven hundred feet?

I look down. That is a mistake.

It takes me a full minute with my eyes closed to stop digging my fingers deep enough into the rock to start climbing again.

So, looking down is out. I rack my brain for other times that had happened to me.

"Huh. I don't think I've ever been up this high." I mutter out loud.

I let go with my left hand and reach up to search for another outcropping to grip. It comes across a patch of vines. I slowly try pulling the vines away from the wall, but they don't budge. I put a little bit of weight on them, and still, solid in place. I wrap my hand in the vines and take a step up with my right foot.

Suddenly, the vines come to life and twist around my arm even further. My eyes widen and I reach for my sword with my free hand, letting go of the wall completely.

My feet remain planted in their holds, but the only reason I haven't toppled over is the vine wrapping around me. I finally draw my sword and slash at the base of the plant.

This obviously didn't turn out as I planned. Yes, the vines died, but as they disintegrated into shiny bits (and an xp window pops up) I start to topple over and plummet back down the cliff.

You can feel free to ridicule me now.

From my perspective, the ground is currently upwards. Looking upwards, the ceiling is falling towards me very fast. It's a very sharp ceiling filled with rocky outcroppings called stalagmites or stalactites or something.

I wonder why my life is so messed up as one particularly sharp one gets closer to me.

Then, a blur of blue and suddenly I'm not falling. It takes me a minute to catch my breath, but once I do, I sit up.

Flying. I'm flying. Above me, it almost feels like I can touch the smooth stone of the floor above. Below me... I'm on top of a blue creature, roughly bird looking-

A dragon? But why would a dragon save me?

"Hey!"

I turn in my seat to find a young girl looking up at me with a pouting face. "Who said you could ride my dragon?"

I look between her and the dragon. Well, she was riding it, and unless she fell and this dragon is here to catch anyone falling, yeah, she's actually a dragon tamer. We used to have some visit our shops, but when the gate closed four years ago they stopped coming.

"Sorry? I just fell off of that cliff. It wasn't like I planned on falling to my death today."

She crosses her arms. "Well, I don't give rides for free."

I sigh. "So, how much do you want?"

She blinks. "On no, I don't want your money. I want you to play with me!"

She beams a smile filled with innocence. I take a quick glance to make sure my marker was still red and I wasn't hallucinating. "You realize that I'm not the safest person you could play with."

She shrugs. "You owe me a debt. Pay up."

I grumble. "Sure, sure."

She beams and extends her hand, her reddish brown hair flapping in the breeze. "I'm Silica!"

"Kirito."

"It's been a while since we had a visitor on this floor. Are you the guy who unlocked the teleporter?"

I nod. "I'm a budding Clearer. It's my job to kill monsters and make more floors available for use." I rub my shoulder. "Hey, do you know why the central city of this floor is haunted?"

She squints at me. "It's not haunted. It's inhabited by Enpesees."

"Enpesees?"

"Yeah! I'll introduce you to my grandfather, he knows a lot about them, and other things!"

I take a glance off the side of the dragon. Yeah, pretty steep fall. I wouldn't survive that without a dragon of my own. I right myself and look around. This floor is actually pretty nice, mountains stretching across the landscape and making for beautiful scenery. Silica points to a mountain roughly ten kilometers away. "We live on the other side of that mountain."

"Isn't it hard to get there?"

She looks at me like I had just grown another head. "Not when you have a dragon." She pauses thoughtfully. "For that matter, where's your dragon?"

I shake my head. "I don't have one."

Her face turns into a look of pure astonishment. "But how do you get around?"

I point to my feet.

She looks at my boots and frowns, but refrains from commenting. We fly around the peak she had indicated earlier, and her village comes into sight. The side of the mountain is carved out, and a multilayered village is set up before my eyes.

Silica expertly guides her dragon down into a spot where other dragons are being held. I watch as she ties up her dragon, pats him on the nose and skips up to me.

"So, let's go see my grandpa!"

She grabs my hand and starts dragging me forward. Villagers that seem a lot more solid than those Enpesees watch us go past, a mixture of curiosity and wariness evident on their faces. I just allow myself to be dragged wherever Silica was taking me. I'm pretty sure that this area didn't count as a city, so I should be able to defend myself in here.

Silica leads me to what appears at first glance to be a ramshackle hut built into the wall. Through the windows, I can see the stone is carved out so deep that the size of the entrance seems absurdly small.

Silica turns around and waves her hands at me. "I live here with grandpa and my family."

I smile. "Looks like a nice place you got here."

She nods enthusiastically and opens the door. She beckons me to follow when I hesitate to enter.

Inside, I can really see the depth of this place. It's basically a cave furnished to look like a basement of a building on one of the lower levels. Silica runs right around a corner and disappears before I can stop her. Instead of continuing after her, I decide to wait for her to come back. Hopefully, she'll notice I'm not here soon-

Oh, there she is.

"See? I told you!" She says up to an old man. The man looks at me as if sizing me up. I self-consciously rub my hair. He has a happy air about him, like he was one of those caretakers that watch children on lower floors. Kind, caring, that sort of feeling.

"So, the announcement is true. Someone cleared the dungeon between is floor and the last again." He walks shakily forward. "I take it you were on the team that made it through?"

"Uh... Yes." I was the sole member of that team, but I was still a member, right?

Silica tugs on my arm. "Tell us about it!"

She flops down onto the floor. The old man crosses his legs and sits down on the carpeted floors as well.

I shrug and follow suit. Silica slides up next to me and looks up at me expectantly.

"So, where do you want me to start?" I ask playfully.

"At the beginning!"

"Uh... Ok. At the start of the universe, there was a large explosion-" Mom always used that on me when I asked for an explanation. She has no idea what it means either.

"No, not that far back. When you started your adventure!"

I look at the old man. He glances at my eyes, then his flick to my marker and then back to mine. I give a subtle nod.

"Well, I decided to leave the city on the twelfth floor and try to clear a dungeon..."

* * *

We talked for some time, me regaling Silica and the old man, whose name turned out to Griever, with a heavily edited tale of how I got here. I added in such things as a raiding party that had left while I had decided to explore the mountains, a giant wasp, and a legendary sword that I was unable to reach. That last part was a dream I had once, and I always wanted to brag that I had found a rare weapon, so...

Silica in turn told me about dragons. In these mountains, dragons roost in caves that are prevalent. The entire floor is apparently covered with mountains, and the city in the center is the only patch of truly flat land on the entire floor. Griever would chime in from time to time to correct her on little details.

Dragons are apparently social creatures that hang out together in packs, but ones that get too big and threaten the food supply are kicked out and end up on the far edges of the map. Thus, most of the dragon rider clans (this is clan Wu Tang, which Griever seemed to find funny for some reason) stayed in the inner portions of this floor. Anything that can survive out nearer to the edge is dangerous enough to take down a typical dragon rider.

Only a very few people up here aren't dragon riders, since it's the best way to get around. At the age of ten, a dragon rider is given a dragon egg, and much to my shock, receive their update at that time. My first thought was honestly that I felt let down for waiting until fifteen. Then, the egg normally hatched within a year. When it did, the dragon imprints on the person holding the egg. The rider takes care of the dragon until it matures and can be ridden. I had heard of taming horses from level eight before, and this seemed remarkably similar while still being a lot more complicated.

Maybe I should get myself a dragon.

Griever stands up after a while and excuses himself. I watch him leave around the corner before Silica distracts me again. "I have question!" She whispers loud enough for the entire valley to hear.

"OK, what's your question?" I say in a normal voice that doesn't carry as far.

"What are the lower floors like?"

I purse my lips. "Flatter. They still have hills, and floor four has a few mountains, but this trumps that area by far. People are able to walk for miles without too much difficulty. There's a lot more people down there too. You can't step inside a city without meeting someone."

I stop talking as I remember those Enpesees. They did technically inhabit the city, so maybe that wasn't so different. I'm about to correct myself when Silica sighs.

"I wish I could meet people. Enpesees are soooo boring. All they do is repeat the same three things at you over and over and over again. That's why I was scouting around the city. Since you unlocked it, people are sure to come!"

I bite my lip to keep from telling her that those Enpesees would and have freaked out anyone who had encountered them from the lower floors.

The door mounted on the front of the cave clicks. Silica jumps to her feet and rushes the door before it even opens, and by the time she gets there, two weary looking people stand in the door. A tall, lanky man an axe strapped to his back and a short, stocky redhead that looked like she spent most of her time smirking.

The man catches Silica as she jump and swings her around. "Hey! How's my little girl?"

Silica giggles.

The woman notices me. "Hello."

I nod. "Hello."

She walks over and offers her hand. "I'm Margery."

"Kirito."

"I haven't seen you before. Where are you from?"

"Born on the tenth floor. Recently cleared a dungeon and let people back up here." I glance around. "At, least, that's what I thought I was doing. Seems there were already people on this floor."

Margery nods. "Silica's grandfather, Griever, was around when humans occupied floor thirty. He claims to have been around when everyone was confined to floor one, but that's absurd." She smiles. "So, did Silica drag you here?"

"Well, I kinda lost my grip on a mountain and she caught me. I figured I owed her a debt." I stick out my tongue a little and gently rap the side of my head.

Margery laughs. "Sounds like her. I bet she waited until the last second as well."

"I didn't have time to check." I smirk.

She turns and becomes me over to the man. He stops swinging Silica around and staggers a bit as he tries to stop his eyes spinning. Margery patiently waits until his eyes focus.

"This is Kirito. Kirito, this is my husband, Reiner."

Reiner extends his hand. "Nice to meet you."

I return the handshake. "Nice to meet you as well."

He turns to Margery. "I'm going to cook up these steaks. You get Silica washed up, alright?"

Margery turns to me. "Would you like to stay for dinner?"

"Oh, no, I would be intruding."

"Silica invited you here, and to be honest, I'm curious as to your story. I don't think it would be an intrusion."

I open my mouth to object, but a brilliant smell wafts from the kitchen and my stomach growls loud enough for her to hear.

She claps her hands together. "It's decided. You'll be eating with us." She points towards the corner everyone keeps disappearing behind. "If you walk down that hallway and enter the second door on the left, that's the dining area. Please wait there, if you would."

She heads down the straight hallway that I had noticed first.

Left all alone, I shrug and do as she asks. I round the corner and find twenty doors lining a hallway.

"Second on the left." I mutter. "So, that means this one."

I pull it open to find a low table with a blanket skirt. It's too low for chairs, and I don't see any chairs around, so my guess is that you sit on the floor. On that note, it looks like it could have about eight people around it.

I sit down in the far corner of the table and flop backwards.

Huh. They painted the ceilings. I trace the intricate blue lines weaving in and around each other organically, crisscrossing back and forth to form pictures that almost resembled something, but didn't quite.

The door opens and I sit up. Griever enters and closes the door behind him. When I look at his eyes, he looks a lot less grandfathery and a lot more scary. The shaking in his legs is gone as well.

"Kirito, I have something you need to see."

He walks over to me, and his newfound presence makes me want to move away from him. Before I have the chance, he plops down next to me. He opens his inventory and rapidly punches in a few buttons faster than I thought possible at his age. Before I know it, a book is sitting on the table in front of us.

He points to the book. "That is something you will want to have."

"What is it?"

"A book."

I roll my eyes. "I got that. What's in it?"

"Words."

I resist the urge to slap myself in the face. "Okay then. So, why do I want it again?"

He smiles. "It's a one of a kind book. Kind of odd, if you think about it, since it used to be the most prevalent book out there." He shakes his head. "Don't let anyone see you with that book. It has the truth." He looks at me in the eyes, and his stare locks me in place. "Silica said you were interested in finding out about NPCs?"

I nod, eyes barely moving.

"It's all in that book. Don't show it to anyone though, or else you might be killed for owning it."

Both of our head snap up as the door clicks, announcing its opening. Griever sweeps the book off the table into my lap. I quickly scramble to put the book into my inventory.

Silica burst into the room and Griever is suddenly back in grandpa mode.

Soon after, her parents arrive and we all eat. Griever told us all some tales that were either tall or straight out lies, or else this guy was a Clearer when he was my age. Actually, given what he had supposedly given to me, I wouldn't be surprised if that last one was true. I resist the urge to open my inventory and check it, which was growing by the minute.

In turn, I repeated my tales to them, and Silica helped out with some portions, actually improving my story somewhat.

After the food was gone, filling our stomachs, Reiner offered to fly me back to the city. I accepted his offer and we were off in less than ten minutes. When we got airborne, he half turned in his saddle and looked at me.

"So, how did you get a red marker?"

I sigh. "Stupid accident, trying to protect someone. It was a red player who was holding two of my friends hostage by a red player. I'm a little too high level to be running through murders without abandon though. He hadn't hurt anyone, so..."

"Now you bear the mark of someone who has taken another's future."

I grimace. "It sounds even worse when you say it like that."

He turns back to face forward. "You said you cleared the dungeon leading to this floor?"

Startled by the abrupt change, it takes me a second to answer. "Uh, yeah. It-"

"Who was in your party? Over the years, we've tried to kill that demon bug, but it was impossible. Did you all level to eighteen before attempting that?"

"I... I don't know how high everyone else in my party is, but I leveled up to twenty three-"

He turns around in his seat again. Silence prevails, only interrupted by the swoosh of the downbeat of the wings. Somehow, this dragon wasn't jerking up and down with every stroke of its wings.

"Level 23?" He shakes his head. "That's absurd. I think you could've solo'd the boss with that level."

I keep my face straight. Maybe a little too straight, because-

"Did you actually solo it?" He face turns from shock to awe. "I used to dream of soloing a dungeon, but I was never solid enough in my skills to attempt it." He turns back to face forwards. "After all, once I was high enough level to even attempt it, I already had a wife and a little girl to take care of. You're lucky you don't have ties in place yet. You can still be a little reckless."

I shrug, a movement entirely lost on his back. "It's not like I don't have family, I just want to see what's on floor 100."

Reiner laughs. "Floor one hundred. Lofty goals there."

"I've wanted to join a clearer guild since I can remember, and my goal has always been the top." I grin. "I'm off to a good start, wouldn't you say?"

His smile turns into a thin line. "Does Griever know of your goals?"

"Yeah."

"Then he probably tried to give you something he claimed held 'The Truth.'"

"Uh..."

"It's a load of garbage. It places us all in a ridiculous world where we are all fake, and our real minds are far away... It's been a while since he showed it to me, when he and I both thought I was going to do great things."

I think about the look in Griever's eyes when he was talking to me. He certainly didn't seem like he was bluffing. I don't say this out loud though.

"My suggestion is to throw that book away. Despite what he says, it isn't the last copy. He makes them in his room back home."

He pulls on the reins of his mount and it descends to an open space that looks suspiciously designed for dragons to land.

"Thanks for the ride."

He nods. "Good luck on your adventuring. If you're ever short a party member, look me up!"

He swoops up into the night and I turn towards the entry gates. Maybe I should rent a room?

I walk to the nearest motel and head to the counter. I ring a bell and someone- an Enpesee- walks out of the back and quickly exchanges money with me in return for a room. As I trudge up the stairs, a notification appears in my inbox. I poke the air absentmindedly.

Silica has sent me a friend request. I press accept without a second thought.

I lie in the rented bed and close my eyes. Today had been long, filled with the smell of dragons, and informative. My consciousness fades away as sleep overtakes me.

* * *

When I wake up, I feel like I'm being smashed into the ground. Crushing. My mouth has something covering it, my back itches, and I'm... I'm naked, for some reason. I normally put at least something on in my sleep, and didn't I go to bed with my armor still on?

Something to my left beeps. As I strain to turn my head, it starts beeping louder.

Several voices start yelling. One approaches and presses his hand to my eye, drawing a thin black tube-

OW! Bright!

"Shit, he's waking up."

"But he's supposed to be under for another hour at least!"

"Put him back in his tank, let's get him back in!"

"We can't, we're still patching his software!"

I groan, which shuts everyone up for a good while.

Finally, someone speaks. "What is wrong with this kid? This is the fourth or fifth time he's caused a problem, right?"

"Only third. His update, that log out glitch that we're currently fixing, and today. Three."

A female voice I hadn't head before chimes in. "How did you get hired if you can't even do basic math?"

"Wait, no, there was four, you missed one."

"Three."

"Four."

"Check the records!"

"No, you check-"

"Enough!"

The one voice grumbles. "So, he's allergic to both sedation drugs we have on hand, and he's waking up."

"We need to get him to go back to sleep."

In my blurry vision, I see a big shape looming between me and the lights overhead. "I think I can make him go to sleep real easy. Just hit his temple-"

"No, Jack, if you hurt him the director will be on your ass."

"Jack" sighs. "Fine, but I can guarantee he isn't allergic to my method."

"I call asphyxia and blood loss to the brain being allergic to violence." the woman snarks.

The looming shape moves away slightly. "Then what do you suppose we do?"

I open my mouth, but all that comes out is a gurgle. Why do I feel so heavy?

I try to raise my arm, but it almost feels glued to the surface of whatever I am lying on.

The calmest voice I had heard so far starts up. "Alright, here's the plan. I'm going to bring him back to the pod chamber. You four go monitor everyone else for abnormalities."

The woman snaps back. "We do that every day. It's boring."

"Then change the color scheme again."

"Did that."

"Then design a new interface."

"We already have twenty!"

I suddenly feel movement as the table thing I am on starts moving. I get moved to an area with lots of blue pods everywhere. Hey, these remind me on those times... Wait, didn't that one guy say something... My brain is too foggy to pull together anything coherent. Maybe if someone would remove all the weights off my body!

"I don't understand why, but you keep getting out. Are you doing this on purpose? Kayaba did send you a warning to stop doing this." He sighs. "Well, I guess it couldn't have been your fault this time."

Something makes a horrible sound like a parrot being choked. The man leans over and starts speaking in a more authoritative method. "Linux here."

A scratchy voice appears out of nowhere. "The software patch is done. Send him back."

Linux turns and hits a few buttons out of sight. "Please, don't come back. I already have too many reports to write as it is."

My eyes blur as something starts moving me upwards with a jerk. I try to move, but I still felt like I was being dragged to the depths by some unseen force. After about five seconds, I start tilting over-

I land in a world of blue, a strange substance enters my mouth, and I realize that the weight is lifted. Something grabs my back and pulls me back down deeper in the ooze. I can feel something warming up against my back as the faint noises continue.

Someone outside of my tank or pod or whatever they called it presses some buttons and I fade from life again.

* * *

My eyes open to find sunlight streaming though my window. I sit up and find myself exactly where I thought I was sleeping, still dressed in full battle gear. I stretch my muscles out and head downstairs.

There, I find a very interesting sight. Silica is sitting on the counter that the innkeeper is sitting behind, while Klein, Asuna, and Lizbeth all are talking to her.

"Hey!" I call, and four heads swivel in my direction.

"Kirito!" Lizbeth runs up to me and grabs my shoulders. "That little girl keeps telling us that she's your girlfriend. That's not true, is it?"

"Huh? No!" I jerk away from her grip. "Silica, what are you telling-"

She tackles me with a hug and buries her face in my shirt. I look around bewilderedly to find three looks of varying amusement at my predicament.

"Silica, we only just met. I don't think it would be right to go claiming that, even if that's how you feel."

She looks up at me with tears in her eyes. "But I saved you! Like a knight saving a princess!"

I swear Klein's head snapped up and he started paying attention at those words.

"Yes, but-"

"Do you already have a girlfriend then?"

I open my mouth to say yes just to dissuade her, but two images flash through my mind: one of Asuna poking my eye out and one of Lizbeth smashing my head in. I glance in their direction... Yup, both look like they're waiting for my answer.

How come I can solo a boss easily, but when it comes to these two I always chicken out?

"No, I don't. I'm... kind of working on it."

Silica deflates a bit. "Oh."

I smile. "Hey, it's not like I'm ungrateful for you saving me. Wanna be friends?"

Her smile returns. "Okay!"

Lizbeth marches over to me. Silica sees the murderous look in her eyes and wisely decides to go bug Klein. Lizbeth grabs me by the collar and hoists me up in the air.

"Uh, been working on your strength stat?" I say meekly.

She slams me up against a wall. "Who is this girl you are 'working on'?"

"Uh-"

"I don't want excuses either. I'm not a little girl you can trick with some wordplay."

Over her shoulder, I can see Asuna fingering the hilt of her sword. Why, oh why, do I get into these situations?

"Obviously, you can be tricked. That wasn't the truth; it was the easiest way out of the situation."

"Then what is the truth?"

"I... I don't have a girlfriend. Period."

Asuna starts standing right behind Lizbeth, I'm sure that Lizbeth should've sensed her presence by now.

She lets go of my collar and I flop to the floor. Lizbeth shoots Asuna a dirty look as she stalks away.

So, can I go kill something now? I'm sure combating something ten levels higher than me would be less stressful than this.

I stand up only to have Klein lean against the wall next to me. "You're really good with the ladies, you know?"

I stare at him with dead eyes. "What do you mean? That was a disaster. I almost got my head caved in."

He nods. "You have three girls gunning for you, and you managed not to ruin your chances with any of them. I commend you."

I'm pretty sure my jaw hit the floor. "What? That's not... but... I'm not that kind of guy!"

Klein places his hand on my shoulder. "That's too bad. It's such a shame to waste such talent."

He pushes away from the wall leaving me feeling even more confused than ever.

"Why can't people be easy to understand?" I mutter.

* * *

Tensions remained pretty high between Asuna and Lizbeth until that bodyguard of Asuna's showed up. What was his name? Kumafeels? Either way, I didn't get to hear what he said, but I do know that after Asuna clubbed him, they started smiling again and talking.

Klein draws his sword. "So, what are we doing about this floor? We can't leave these people-"

"Enpesees!" Silica says.

"Right, those. What are we doing about them?"

"I figure we leave them." I say. "We don't know how to get rid of them, and until we do, it's fruitless to worry about it. Instead, I'm going to see if I can find the dungeon for this floor."

Klein shrugs. "Sounds like fun. I'm in."

Asuna rolls her eyes. "We're all in, since it's technically Kirito's guild."

Koopareal starts to object, but Asuna shuts him up with a glare.

"We should set out before noon. Silica, which landing area do you have your dragon in?"

She immediately points vaguely west. "She's that way."

Lizbeth tilts her head a fraction. "How do you know?"

Silica smiles. "All dragon tamers can tell where their dragons are at all times. It helps when different clans meet and there a lots of dragons everywhere."

I let their talk fade and just close my eyes. I take a quick mental inventory of my items and try to decide what I need to buy before I leave.

After about another hour of talking, we all go our separate ways and agree to meet up at the landing area on the west end of the city. I buy camping gear, lots of rope, and some dry rations that should at least fill our stomachs even if it isn't particularly tasty. Without realizing it at first, I was already counting Silica as part of our little group. I'd have to ask her if she wanted to come with us or not.

Somehow, I knew the answer would be yes.

When we met at eleven forty (Klein was late, and he had some excuse I outright ignored) I asked Silica that very question and the response I got was "Duh!"

I distributed out my purchased gear, and Lizbeth and Klein looked surprised. "We're camping out there?"

"I'm told that it's hard going without a dragon, and even with one it's no picnic. It's not going to be a short expedition, in any case."

Silica starts bouncing on the balls of her feet. "I can help with that!" She turns around and whistles.

Six dragons all colored the light blue that matches the sky launch themselves off the side of the nearest mountain and dive at us. Most of us instinctively draw our weapons, but Kamipeel actually hides behind Asuna, which earns him a look of disgust.

Klein looks the least rattled of all of us, excepting Silica, and he glances over at the supposed bodyguard. "I thought your job was to protect her." He mutters.

The six dragons land in a circle around us. Silica runs up to one and wraps her arms around its neck. "Pina!"

"Pina?" Klein asks as he slowly sheathes his sword as the other dragons seem to be waiting and watching Silica.

"My dragon! Pina, this is Asuna, Lizbeth, Klein and Kuradeel."

Oh, so that's his name... Wait, what was it? Why can't I remember it? She just said it!

"You already know Kirito. He's the guy that fell off the mountain."

The rest of my party looks at me with horrified looks. "What? I didn't _want_ to fall off the mountain!"

Koonaseal shakes his head. "If you were dead right now..." somehow, I didn't get the impression he would be too broken up about it.

Silica points to the other five dragons. "These are dragons that didn't get imprinted, so you can ride them. We always keep a few extra because occasionally a dragon with get sick or die. They don't get names though."

Asuna slowly approaches one of the dragons. "Can we give them names?"

Silica shrugs. "I guess, but it's not likely to stick."

"I'm going to call her Norberta."

Klein smirks. He looks around a walks up to a dragon. "I'm going to call mine Honoo."

Lizbeth glances at the nearest dragon, which blinks at her. "Um..."

A large face fills my view. I look at the dragon that had decided to lumber up to me and sniff me. "I'm going to call you-"

Smaug.

"...Huh?"

I look around. I don't see anyone else looking at me.

My name is Smaug.

I look back at the dragon. "I'm going to call him Smaug."

I hear faint laughter from what seems like extremely far away.

I'm going to attribute that to the crazy that has surrounded me and I'm not going to delve into it deeper.

Silica claps her hands. "Now, here's how you fly. To tell the dragon to go up..."

* * *

Almost eight hours later, we land in a cave that Silica assures us has been abandoned for many years. Our dragons were exhausted, so we decided to set out tomorrow. We ate my tasteless rations and set up the tents, and we all went to sleep.

At least, we all tried. I think everyone else succeeded, judging by the sounds of steady breathing coming from the other tents.

I get up, my pattern of poor sleep apparently destined to continue. I walk to the cave entrance.

It's a nice view. The mountains and the stars almost make this floor look like a giant cave in and of itself. I can see why one would choose to live here, especially if you had a dragon to help you get around.

"Can't sleep?"

I crane my neck around to see Asuna standing behind me, bathed in moonlight. My jaw almost dropped, but I managed to keep my composure.

"I haven't slept well since I updated, really. Too many weird things, and my brain keeps going back to that update."

I didn't mention how literally I meant that statement.

She sighs and plops down beside me. "I'm sure you can find a way to sleep. How about you try a book?"

"A book."

"Yeah! I always have a few on me, in case I have trouble sleeping."

I quirk an eyebrow. "Then how come you aren't reading, and instead talking to me?"

She turns away so I can't see her face. "Because... Well, I need more books. I've read these all a few times already."

"Ah." I stretch my arms out to the sides, careful not to hit anything or anyone.

"Do you want to borrow one of my books?" She turns to me.

"Sure, if you don't mind. I might as well give it a try."

She opens her inventory excitedly and pulls out a book. She holds it out like she was handing me a box filled with gold. "Take good care of it, okay?"

"Yeah. I will."

She stands up. "I'm going to go back to bed. You should probably get some sleep if you can."

I nod and stand up as well. We each head for our individual tents and I enter mine before she reaches hers. I lie down on my mat and stare at the roof. Well, might as well read that book.

I open my inventory and open the books tab. There's... why is there two books? Asuna had just handed me... oh, right, Griever's book. Let's see, The Dance of the Lilies was probably the one Asuna had given me, so at left the other to be Griever's book.

It's called the player's handbook. I pull it out and start to read.

And that is the day I learned my life was a lie.


	7. Chapter 7: The Awful Truth

Hey, look who's updating in a timely manner! I hope you all enjoy. I liked writing this chapter, and don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this.

I have a plan, I swear.

Enjoy!

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

Sometimes, you just wake up the day after a test and realize that you got every single answer wrong. Sometimes you break your favorite weapon because you forgot to send it to a smith. Sometimes, people hurt your feelings.

None of these compare even remotely to what I am now feeling.

I sit on the same rocks, looking out at the same sky as last night, only now the sky is reddish and the stars are hard to see. Open in my lap is the reason for my distress.

The player's handbook. It's such an unassuming name, really. It definitely doesn't sound like something that would ruin your day. Night. Whatever. It's not like I would've slept anyway. Might as well just assume all twenty four hours were for fighting.

I look at the page that I had left open. Page 306. It's titled Logging out. According to this, going to sleep should log me out. According to this, everyone could log out. According to this, Logging out should be a daily occurrence.

According to this, we were all living inside a machine.

I didn't believe it at first. Well, really, I'm still not too sure I believe it. It kind of makes too much sense though. At first, I thought that Silica's dad had been right, and that Griever had been a nutcase. But...

I had been waking up somewhere, somewhere blue and heavy. Somewhere where it was hard to move. Somewhere that was perfectly described in the manual.

I kid you not. Page 249. It has a picture of a tube of blue gel with a person in it. It has some words next to it describing that people could theoretically live in one their entire lives if they chose too. A diagram of the back of the machine showed those cables and things that those people outside had told me not to touch, and apparently, those things kept me alive inside the airless, nutrient-less environment. On the bottom of the page was a number with an odd symbol next to it. ¥129999.99. I don't know what that means, but I'm going to guess it's a price for the tube. If that was in col, I could've told you how much it would cost in a heartbeat. Not that I had noticed, but there was supposedly a helmet attached to my head. For what must have been the hundredth time, I scratch my skin, as if something was pressing on it. Which there wasn't. At least, there wasn't anything here.

It's going to take a while for me to get used to the fact that I have two bodies, and one of them I don't even know what it looks like.

I open my menu again. I thumb through the sub menus until I get to the right place. The logout button had disappeared. I press the blank space, and predictably get no response. I close the menu and put my head in my hands. Welcome to the crackpot club, Kirito.

I had, in my hours of thinking, realized something. Exactly zero people would believe this. Since I had no more evidence, and this book was the only source, it would be just like Griever. I would be branded a liar as well as a killer. That's kind of counter to my goals.

My goals have changed significantly, though. Now, I no longer want to get to the top floor to see what's there. I want to get to the top floor for an entirely different reason.

I want to get out.

See, Griever had added things in. Instead of just the regular, uniform, eerily perfect text, there was also messy handwritten scribbles on the edges of some of the pages. Some things, like this page (306) had lots of notes scribbled about how the system had been modified. It boiled down to the fact that nobody was allowed to log out.

The book had taught me a lot of other things as well. NPCs (not Enpesees) were not people, but things that the system used to give people something to interact with. They were no more human than a wall, they just had more personality. Slightly more, but not much. I learned a lot of new words too. Words like system, which was apparently a massive box that made us all see, hear, feel things that aren't actually there. Heck, even the food was simulated.

Most jarring though was the name that signed on the end. I had seen it before. Akihiko Kayaba.

As far as I could tell, this "simulation" had been running for a long time. I'm pretty sure this Akihiko should be dead, even if he was in one of the tubes. So that begs the question: Was I insane, or was everyone else?

A though strikes me as the sun pokes its head over the edge of the 13th floor. Griever had known the name Akihiko, at least enough to write something in the margins about him, all nasty stuff. That means that he had known about Akihiko through some different means from my own.

I flip back to the notes on Akihiko. The perfect text seemed to portray him as all powerful, able to do anything. He was called administrator, which means god. I inferred that last part, it wasn't written. The sloppy handwritten part was full of hate though. It had things about him being a murderer, being a liar, and being an all around di-

"Kirito?"

I slap the book shut and have it stored away before I even fully stand up. By the time I had reached my entire five foot eight height, my hand was on the hilt of my sword.

Lizbeth stands there with both her hands in front of her, mouth slightly open.

I slowly release my sword and exhale. "Don't do that."

"Do what? Say your name?" She says sarcastically. Her face softens a tiny bit. "What were you reading?"

I open my menu and hand over the book that Asuna had given me.

"Oh. I wasn't aware guys liked this kind of book." She smiles nastily. She opens the book to a random page. "She fell into his arms, in a full swoon. Gracefully, tenderly, he lowered his lips to hers-"

I grab the book away from her. "It's not mine."

"Of _course_ it isn't." She rolls her eyes. "It's really none of my business anyway. I came to ask you what we're doing today."

I point to the sunrise. "The dungeon tube leading up is over there. The entrance should be near there."

She raises an eyebrow. "Dungeon tube?"

I realize my mistake too late. "It's a name... that I heard once. It sounds accurate."

I don't think I need to mention where I found that name.

She seems not to care enough to take much notice. "Whatever. So, I should be waking everyone else up?"

I nod. "Leave Silica to sleep though. She's too young to be doing this, if you ask me."

In the book, which I'm going to continue referencing until even I'm sick of it, there was something in really tiny text in the front that had a lot of confusing things. One of the things was that there wasn't supposed to be was players under the age of thirteen. I didn't understand why not. It obviously worked well enough that we could have ten year old dragon riders.

I listened detachedly as Lizbeth woke up everyone in the cave. Klein looks perfectly fine, like he did this all the time. Asuna, on the other hand, looked like she had just tussled with a scorpion.

I watch them slowly pack up from my spot. When Klein, Kiradool and Asuna finally walk out of the cave with their gear in tow, Lizbeth says the magic words.

"Breakfast!"

A blur shoots out of the cave that resolves into the relatively small form of Silica. She latches around Lizbeth's leg faster than the eye could follow.

"Looks like she doesn't need more sleep, Kirito." Lizbeth comments.

I shake my head.

Asuna walks up to me. Despite her being a year older, I was already taller than her. She squints at my face. "Kirito, are you alright?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Did my book help?"

"Wait, so that book wasn't actually yours?"

"Uh, why would Kirito have a book like that?"

Lizbeth steps up to Asuna. "I don't know. Why would you think that he would like something like that?"

"It's the only one I have that he might possibly like! All my others are yaoi!"

Silica tugs on Klein's sleeve. "What's yowee?"

Asuna clamps her hands over her mouth. Klein's face goes beet red. "Uhm... It's... It's this thing... where people do things... and there are more guys than girls in it."

Silica makes a face. "That doesn't sound interesting at all!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Asuna heave a sigh of relief. Personally, I'm glad that didn't go poorly-

"But I still want to try it."

Asuna sinks to the ground. Lizbeth jumps in front of her. "Look, they're full of big words, and the subject matter isn't that interesting, really."

Silica looks confused. "But dad always says you don't know until you try."

"He wasn't talking about this, I'm almost one hundred percent positive." Liz says. She crosses her arms as if to add, "and that's final!"

"O-kay. But I'm going to ask dad when I get home."

Klein sighs and shudders. "Okay, so, I heard the word breakfast."

Lizbeth starts. "Oh yeah! Ok, I'll get started."

I sit back down facing the mountains. While the noises of breakfast cooking start, I look around over my shoulder at my "party." Kirigeel wouldn't believe me on principle, Asuna would agree outwardly, but not inwardly, Liz would just snort at me, Klein would laugh, and Silica... Well, Silica might be receptive, but best not to push my luck.

Klein plops down beside me with a plate of scrambled eggs. "So what's with you today? Reading romance novels and traumatizing little girls?"

"I wasn't... I wasn't actually reading that book." I mumble. "I didn't know what it was, and now I'm certainly not going to read it."

"Aw, come on. Just a few chapters can't hurt."

I pull the book out of my inventory. "Then you read a few chapters first. If you like it, I'll try it."

Klein snatches the book away from me. "Challenge accepted."

"Huh? Hey, wait a sec-"

He opens the book and starts reading, covering the book with his arms so I couldn't reach it.

I stand there in shock for a good minute. It takes Asuna tugging on my arm to rouse me.

"Kirito? Do you want something to eat?"

"No thanks. I'm going to go see to the dragons."

I walk off and down the narrow path that leads to the cave we let our dragons roost in.

In the player's handbook, it said that dragons were companions. If you bond with one (in one of several ways) it will follow you around. According to the book and several scribbled notes, certain companions were more useful on certain floors. The example cited was floor thirteen, where dragons became much larger and afforded easier transportation across the landscape.

Back-tracing that logic, going to any other floor would result in these dragons getting smaller, but I don't know how much.

As I enter, three of the six dragons look my way. One of them is Smaug. I can tell because he grumbles slightly and watches as I get closer, while the others quickly lose interest.

"Hello there Smaug."

The dragon grumbles.

"Want to go flying?"

In the book, there was three ways to tame a companion and get their loyalty. The first is to be there when the creature is born, and raise it like Silica did. That's the ideal partnership, but it takes a long time. The second method involves food. It's when you lure the creature to you and lather affection on it until it bonds with you. This method was weaker than the first method, but still stronger than the third way. The third way isn't like the other two, where a bond forms naturally. Instead, the player subdues the creature by force, chains it up and forces it to work for him.

Fortunately, since I had neither the bonds to hold a dragon, ample supplies of red meat or an egg to hatch (and the time to hatch it), there is another method in the margins, written specifically for dragons.

"Take them flying."

Smaug dives to build up speed and opens his wings at the last moment, pulling out of the screaming dive just before he would've crashed into the rocks. I clutch tightly to the reigns and let Smaug pick his own destination. He's the one who's supposed to know how to fly, I'm just kind of sitting here.

Smaug does all sorts of acrobatics, most of which I didn't see because I had my eyes clamped shut. I only recently learned that I'm afraid of heights, okay? It's not like I had time to get over it.

I had to stop myself from puking as well. Not that there is much in my stomach, but yeah. No puking on the dragon. I'm not sure if puking was covered in the book, but I'm pretty sure if it was, it would be under things not to do.

Smaug finally rights himself and starts gliding. Grateful for the respite, I look around me. Aside from a sense of being pulled off the dragon by my boots, it is actually quite nice.

A small sound calls out in the distance. Smaug turns his head in the direction of the noise. I follow his gaze to find-

Oh, crap. Ten black dragons start swarming around me, screeching and diving faster than I can track them. Why do dragons screech? They aren't hawks. Or eagles. They're big lizards. I guess it doesn't really matter, since that screech that annoyed me seemed to have a worse effect on Smaug. Smaug starts careening towards a ledge that looks just right for a landing pad as the others start to close in, eager to take advantage of Smaug's weakness.

I twist around in my seat, drawing Black Ice from my holster, and the one-hit-left Stinger. Ten dragons. I might be able to take two on alone, if I can prick one with this poison, but ten is pushing it. Especially since all of their health bars indicate that they are all at least level 19.

Opening my menus, I flick over to the companion stats. This dragon is only level 10, which means... It's weak as all hell. So I can't count on his abilities-

One of the dragons swoops in. I reflexively swing Black Ice upwards and carving into its stomach. It bellows and goes into a steep dive, following us to the ground. Then it bursts into a million shiny particles that rain down from above, shining lights everywhere. In the corner of my eye, a window appears noting new loot.

Wait, these are dragons! Surely they can't be that weak!

Another one swoops in. I swing Stinger around and jab at its foreleg. Stinger predictably breaks, but the dragon doesn't seem to be affected. I slash Black Ice down and-

It glances off of the scales of the creature. Wait, so I got lucky and hit the first one's weak point first try? That's... Well, there is now one less threat to my life, so I'm going to be grateful for that.

"Smaug! Climb!"

I deftly draw a second sword from my inventory and place it in my left hand. Smaug does as told and swoops upwards.

Two dragons fly up on either side, restricting Smaug's wing-space. Smaug starts to fly slower and start dropping.

"Smaug?"

Smaug flaps wildly, but can't find purchase on the air in this cramped space.

"Okay then." I gulp. Please let the book be right. Please, please let the book be right.

I unstrap myself from Smaug's saddle. "I'm going to jump, Smaug. You are going to get away and come back before I get killed."

I will swear on my sword that Smaug nodded at me.

"On my mark."

I tense my legs even more.

"Go!"

I leap onto one of the other dragons right as Smaug flares his wings sideways and uses the air rushing past to come to a quick stop. The dragon I had just landed on growls.

"Oh, so you don't like that? Well, how about this?"

I stab my two swords downwards, and my backup sword lodges between two scales. The dragon screams and starts flying about in circles, trying to get me off. I hang on for dear life to the sword, my feet quickly losing traction on the smooth scales. The second dragon, the one that was flanking Smaug and I, flies through the center of the spiral the one I'm riding. It floats up to my level and pivots to track me.

"What?" I jeer at it.

It inhales a great big breath and breaths fire out at me. The ball of fire comes closer and closer...

I look down. Yeah, not a bright move. My arms instinctively lock around the hilt of my sword. I glance back at the fire. The dragon aiming it is starting to move its head so the fire comes closer. Damn, the book was right. Dragons did have intelligence.

"Smaug? I hope you hear this!"

I close my eyes, whistle, and let go. Wind rushes past my ears as I start falling.

Please please please pleasepleasepleaseplease-

Whumph. I open my eyes as I land on a dragon's back. I scramble for a handhold and snag a strap of leather.

"Okay. Hey Smaug, let's do this. You fly, I kill."

Smaug huffs at me then goes into a spin that makes me want to throw up again. This time, I keep my eyes open and HOLY SHIT that was close. Since when did dragons throw boulders?!

Smaug starts a steep ascent that looks like it will carry us back to the dragons I had just leapt off of. They seem to be having an argument, one involving flame and fire and ohgodthatsalotofteeth.

I pull out yet another backup sword- my last- and stand up, bracing my feet on the straps of the saddle.

"Let's go!"

Smaug roars in challenge, and the two squabbling dragons redirect on us. I kick off of Smaug and launch towards the first one's eyes. It instinctively closes its eyelid, which is pretty armored for something that is supposed to move. Thankfully, this armor isn't transparent. I pull a bag of flour out of my pouch. Typically, it's used in either baking or in detecting invisible people, but today-

The dragon opens its eye only to get an eyeful of white powder. It roars in rage and thrashes about. I brace my swords and jab into the biggest chink I can find and slice. A thin red line denoting the path I just carved shows I did some serious damage... And his health bar hits zero. I barely have time to jump before he turns into glass behind me.

Smaug flies past me and tackles another dragon as it swoops in. I trace my trajectory with my eyes... Hell-o.

My swords enter the dragon's eyes, and I see the health bars drain even as I struggle to break free. Its eyelid is trapping my sword-

_Smash_. Jeez, you'd think I would learn not to leap and kill without figuring out my plan of action.

I land on a rocky outcrop and pant for a second before looking up. Smaug is battling two other dragons at once, and winning.

I check his stats while I have a moment of respite. Let's see... Level 17? Wasn't he level 10 right before this battle? I look back up at the fight. I took out three, Smaug just took two out... I only see four left. He must have gotten one while I was falling.

_Skish_.

Make that 4. So, three left.

I whistle as loud as I can and take a flying leap off of the edge of the cliff, which was a really stupid idea. I know I can't stand heights, so why do I keep looking down?

Smaug catches me and flies upwards. The three dragons that are left are all circling us. I watch one in particular that seems more cunning than the other two.

"Alright, I hope you have a plan." I mutter. "Cause I sure as hell don't."

With that, Smaug dives. I watch as the two potentially stupider dragons follow, but the cunning one stays behind. The two that follow are flying in perfect synchronization behind us, their necks moving in strange manners. I don't get much of a chance to contemplate what they were doing.

It only takes one fireball to take down a dragon. I wish it had known that, it would've been useful. It also takes down half of my health.

Smaug and I crash land on the side of an almost vertical mountain and start to slide off the edge. His wings, leathery like a bat's, are now torn. Smaug gets to his feet and backs into the cave. I quickly follow suit as the other two dragons land on the rock shelf with a crash.

"Okay. Time to see how well dragons fight in a hole."

The two dragons saunter up to us, hissing and spitting small bits of flame.

I ready Black Ice and wait for the right moment.

Wait for it...

I spring upwards right as a fireball is launched at me, dodging it entirely. The fireball splashes against the ground, and I am so glad I jumped instead of ducking. Smaug launches himself at the other dragon, so I figure that means I have to get this one. After a good few seconds in the air, I land on my feet.

"Hey ugly. I thought you were supposed to be a dragon. All I see is a newt."

I'm guessing even the wild dragons know some languages, or else this one took an exception to my tone. I barely dodge the torrent of fire and run up to the beast.

I had planned to stab its stomach while it was blinding itself with its own fire, but it suddenly cuts off the fire and swings its massive jaws at me.

Hey, where'd my sword go... Oh, it's over there with my left arm up to the elbow. That hurts a hell of a lot, actually. The dragon roars, its pose reminding me more of a wolf than anything else. I dash up to it and thrust upwards with Black Ice, which starts making cracking noises. The dragon bellows for one last final time for shattering in a rain of glass.

Through the rain of glass comes Smaug and his opponent. Three thousand pounds of muscle each roll across the cramped cave floor, and Smaug is scratching and clawing at the face of this other dragon which is doing something similar. I walk up to the dragon and toss Black Ice upwards. Smaug catches it in his teeth and plunges it downwards.

Silence pervades through the cave.

"Good job, Smaug."

He drops the sword and I pick it back up off the ground.

Only one more dragon... I look down at my severed left arm, my right arm, which has Black Ice at 3% durability, and at Smaug, who's wings are starting to look unusable.

"Looks like we aren't going to survive this much longer." I mutter.

Smaug huffs beneath me. It's almost like he's telling me to screw off.

I laugh. "Yeah, I get it. You aren't going down without a fight."

He purrs. I didn't know dragons could purr, but despite my predicament, it made me want to laugh even more. It's just so funny! Dragons purring like little kittens!

Smaug lifts his wings and orients himself to the exit. I look out of the cave entrance to see the other dragon circling this mountain lazily, as if it had all the time in the world. I suppose that it would, being nothing more than numbers in a box. Just like me.

I shake my head. Those thoughts were not productive in a fight. Real or simulated, I would die here if I made the wrong move.

"Alright, Smaug. You ready?"

Huff.

"Alright. Go!"

We take off like we got fired out of a slingshot and into the open air. The other dragon is...

Where is he?

I look around, but I don't see anything. No dragon, no fire, no nothing.

So, where was he?

That was when I noticed the shadow and looked up. And screamed.

* * *

I wake up with a concussion, chest pain, and a twisted ankle. I also wake up with someone's head resting on my arm, putting it to sleep. I crane my neck to see Asuna's hair splayed out and around, bobbing up and down slightly as she breathes in and out.

"Asuna?"

No response.

"Hey, Asuna. I would like my arm back, please."

Still no response. She must be asleep for real. I shake my arm as much as I can without moving my torso. She stirs a bit and slowly yawns and looks up.

"Hi, Kirito. Glad you're awake-" Her eyes cross and she starts blushing. "I-I-I wasn't sleeping! I was just tired from waiting and it took a long time to find you."

I smirk. "So you didn't feel it when I-"

"WHEN YOU WHAT?"

Lizbeth storms into the room. She's panting and looks like she just ran here- oh, yeah, she probably did. Don't know how she knew though.

"It was a joke, Lizbeth. Calm down." I look at my left hand (which had thankfully grown back) and I still couldn't feel my right. "So, how come I'm not dead?"

"Well, it took all five of us, but we took down the dragon you were fighting. We arrived right when you flew out of that cave, and we called out, but you didn't hear us. Lizbeth caught you on your way down." Asuna says. Then she pulls out a pillow and slams it into my face. Despite its relative fluffiness and the fact it couldn't weigh more than a few pounds, it hurts.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"Silica said that even the best dragon riders aren't supposed to take on a dragon without backup. We were just sitting there eating breakfast, when out of nowhere a pillar of fire comes from the east. We all scrambled after you and just barely managed to save you."

She throws up her hands. "What made you think you could take out a dragon?"

"I did."

Silence. Sweet silence. At least for a little bit.

"Huh?"

"There was ten of them. I got all but the last one."

Asuna covers her mouth in shock. Lizbeth just lets hers gape.

"You took out nine dragons."

"Yes."

"Without help."

"Uh huh. Well, Smaug helped. Hey, is Smaug alright?"

Asuna nods slowly. "He's recovering. Healing potions and crystals don't work on dragons."

"Right." I slump back. "They need red meat to heal, right?"

"How did you know that?" Says a small voice.

Silica pops her head up over Lizbeth's shoulder. "You better now?"

"I am better, just not 100%. Thanks."

Asuna looks at Lizbeth. Lizbeth looks back. They both have a determined look in their eyes.

Why am I getting a bad feeling?

* * *

"You can't do this."

I blink at the assembled group. "Obviously, I can."

Asuna shakes her head. "Kirito, you know that you almost died? We can't let that happen to you!"

"It won't. I figured out what I did wrong, and next time-"

"Next time, we're too far away to get you!" She slams her hands onto the makeshift table. "Next time, you land in a rocky crag where nobody can find you! Next time, you get eaten! Next time, you die for real!"

Silence descends on the room. Klein is the next to speak. "Kirito, we got lucky. You got lucky twice, being caught while falling twice on this floor alone. If you go off alone, we can't help you when you get hurt."

I stare at all of them. "How long did it take you to kill that dragon?"

Lizbeth's eyebrow quirks. "Are you trying to change the subject?"

"No. Answer the damn question."

"About ten minutes."

"So longer than it took me to take out nine of them." I nod. "Great skill you all have. Combined, I can only outmatch you nine to one."

Lizbeth starts getting angry and Asuna starts looking confused. Klein straightens up from his position leaning against the wall. "Kirito, think. Yes, you can beat nine dragons. But you took on ten. If we were there, we wouldn't have lost a day to let you recuperate."

I look him in the eyes. "I'm fine. Let's go then."

He shakes his head. "It's night. We can't see."

"So? Our dragons can see."

"What if we get ambushed?" Lizbeth says, obviously trying to remain calm. "How do we tell the dragons where to go?"

"We don't need to, they know where to go. We just need to swing our tiny little sticks around and hope we kill something."

Silica rests her chin on the table. "But I don't like the dark."

"Then go home."

Silence.

Silica suddenly bolts upright and throws something at me. I catch it before it can hit me though. It shatters on impact.

"You big idiot!" She screams, before turning and running away. Asuna shoots me a look and disappears after her. K-whatever slouches after them, sighing the whole way.

Klein and Lizbeth glare at me. "Look, Kirito, I don't know what's gotten into you, but you need to back down. We're just trying to help."

"Right. You would. You think this is some grand quest that can be slowly taken all the way to the top, huh? That not true. Look around, everything you see? It's all fake. It's all just something in our heads. None of us are really here, we're all in some tubes somewhere."

Liz and Klein share a look.

"I know you won't believe me. Here." I sift through my inventory and slam the player's handbook down. "Read this. I don't need it anymore."

I walk around the table only to be stopped by Klein's hand on my shoulder. "Kirito-"

"I'd suggest letting go now, before I decide to test how many strokes it takes a level 24 character to take you out. I'm going with one or two."

Klein slowly lets go. I walk off down the corridor to the room with all my stuff.

Time to get packing.

* * *

(Klein's perspective)

"He's acting irrationally." Liz fumes as she sits down in the hallway. I nod politely and keep listening. Asuna had just been informed of Kirito's little fit and was thinking.

Nine freaking dragons. It took us all we had to kill one, and he killed nine.

"Klein."

I look up to see Asuna staring at me.

"Yeah?"

"I want you to watch over Kirito and make sure he doesn't do anything brash."

I nod. "You can count on me."

Lizbeth heaves a sigh. "I don't even understand what he was talking about."

Asuna cocks her head. "What do you mean?"

"He was saying something about this book." Liz tosses it to Asuna.

Asuna opens it up. "What is this?"

"No idea." I reply. "But it's full of weird theories. Stuff that isn't real. It says thinks like that we're all just people trapped in a virtual world. It seems like fear mongering to me." I shrug. "Just throw it out."

"Wait." Asuna points at something. "Kirito... He has this!"

"Huh?" I look over her shoulder. "What's log out?"

Lizbeth shoots me a look. I point to the book. "It's what it says, honest!"

She comes over and starts reading as well. "The log out button..."

After a good five minutes of reading and rereading the relatively short passages, we look at each other.

"So you say Kirito has this log out button."

"Yes! He doesn't- didn't- know what it did! When he was training me, he asked what it was. He must have found that sometime after then."

I shake my head. "This doesn't make any sense. Why would you need to leave this world? This is making it sound like we are supposed to leave Aincrad every few hours!"

I blink. "How is anyone supposed to get to the top level if they aren't always here?"

Lizbeth shakes her head. "I bet he made this. Or he told some crackpot who then made this. With the state he's in, I wouldn't be surprised."

A sharp whistle sounds. In this cave system, it echoes and reverberates for a lot longer than it seemed it should.

As the shrill sound fades, it gets replaced by a new sound.

Thuds. Heavy, loud, thunderous thuds. They remind me of a giant lizard that was rumored to exist on floor twenty three. What was it called?

I poke my head out the doorway, and immediately pull back as a blue scaled blur shoots past me. I look out again once it's past and see... Is that Kirito's dragon?

"Does Kirito have a dragon? I mean, does he have a dragon bonded to him?" I ask.

The two girls present shake their heads.

"Shiiiiit."

Silica pokes her head in the doorway. "Anyone else hear a whistle?"

"Yes. Why?"

"That's the signal for come. We're all taught it very young. But if it wasn't me, then who was it?"

Lizbeth raises her hand. "I'll bet thirty col Kirito managed to bond to a dragon in the half an hour he was gone."

My mouth flattens into a line. "No bet."

The loud, heavy footsteps start coming back.

Silica gasps. "Kirito?"

I grab her arm and yank her into this room before she gets trampled. The blue blur passes by, and I swear time slowed down enough that I could see the smile on Kirito's face as he zipped past.

Lizbeth dashes out after him, closely followed by the rest of us. Kuradeel is still somewhere in the building, but frankly, who cares?

A message pops up into my window. It's from somebody I don't know. One Kazuto Kirigaya.

"Klein."

Wait, that's Kirito... When did he change his name?

"Don't follow me. Not until you can hold your own. Until then, goodbye."

What? He goes through the trouble of changing his name-

My message box pings again. I open it while still running.

"One person has deleted you as a friend."

Huh?!

I look at the three girls around me. Only Lizbeth is making motions as if she was reading a message, but of course I can't see it. She has a single, confused tear running down her face. The roof goes away abruptly and Silica screams for us to stop. Everyone complies and I only mostly went over the edge. After being pulled up from the cliff edge, I look out to see the stars from between the floors. It might be my imagination, but I could've sworn I saw a dragon flying away into the dark.

* * *

Five days later, we stand on a teleport pad. Not just any teleport pad. No, we are standing on floor eighteen. It unlocked literally five minutes ago.

We had been standing guard in a barracks located just outside the floor seventeen teleporter when the message came through. While during the day, announcements came as they had when thirteen was unlocked, but at night, it was just a message that got displayed.

"Fuurinkazan, Move it!"

My guild hops to my orders and spread out, dashing through the streets and two leaping onto rooftops to look for him. These rooftops were already burning, unfortunately, so even they would find a winding path.

He had cleared one floor a day so far.

Nobody could figure out how he was doing it, but I had my suspicions. He wasn't normal, not by a long shot.

"Kirito, stop messing around. You'll get yourself-"

"Killed?"

Suddenly, a blade at my throat. My left eye shifts as far as it can go. "Kirito."

"Klein."

"So, how's things?"

"Good, good. Haven't met anyone new lately."

"That's... nice. I guess."

The blade shifts away. "I think you should check on Franz and Henry. I didn't want to here in this safe zone, so I left you guys a surprise. Might want to get to those two before coming after me."

I whirl around, but my blade cuts nothing but air. I pull open my squad window-

Two paralyzations. Franz and Henry. I whirl and run to where they were both to be stationed. On my way, I hear an ominous hissing...


	8. Chapter 8: The Lands of Ice and Fire

Floor 28: A city wreathed in volcanoes. Thus, everything is fire resistant. I look around before I activate this floor. To escape, I would need to find a new distraction. A tiny Smaug sits on my shoulder, snorting bellows of smoke out of his nostrils. I scratch his head absentmindedly. Doesn't look like the tactics I used the last few times is going to work.

Contrary to what the news messages kept saying, I wasn't out to kill everyone, nor am I the herald of the end of the world. There was just a small problem of the fact I am supposed to be in jail, and... Well, it doesn't look like anyone can stop me. My goal in burning down the cities as I woke them up was just to allow me time to escape. So far, it had helped immensely.

In the past month, I had managed to clear eight floors. Eight floors. When I started, I had been on one floor a day until I hit 20. Floor twenty had been a sobering day.

When I hit floor twenty, I had let Smaug fly around and burn the nearest buildings just like I always had. Unfortunately, I hadn't paid anywhere close to enough attention to this floor, just slapping the button and going for it.

It turned out this floor was filled with swamps. Swamps that produced tons of methane gasses that ignited and started spreading out of my control. Explosions rocked the entirety of Aincrad and even I decided that what I had caused was a bad idea. I bolted out of the plaza right as the capturing force had teleported in. I had glanced over my shoulder to see a flame reach out to lick a methane bubble... And when the smoke cleared, not a single shard of glass had remained.

Those eight warrior's names were gone from the top 100 list the next day. Ironically, the dungeon on the twentieth floor became a safe haven from which I could afford to hide and watch the news messages pour in.

I found out quite a lot more than I wanted too. Because of my companion's fire being everywhere, the entire floor had been made illegal to go to. The fires kept moving around from place to place, and occasionally exploding as a bubble of methane rises to the surface. Those eight that had died had a memorial made of them on the first floor, replacing the old statue of someone long dead- nobody knew who except those with a book. Akihiko Kayaba. Those eight players stood for the righteous fight, one that benefited everyone, not just one self seeking, power hungry swordsman who was actually doing their work for them.

No, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?

In that week, I had been branded everything from a demon to a typical criminal, but there was no positive opinion. I noticed that they people that were close to me, those that knew me, weren't appearing in any articles. I guess they didn't want biased opinions for their news casting.

The last thing I learned from my time in the cave is that people were occupying the floors I had cleared. The popular opinion somehow seemed to be that the Clearers would've opened up these floors anyway, and I'm just an idiot who happened to find a super rare item. I had found no such rare item, but I couldn't exactly prove that. Not while still guaranteeing both their and my safety.

During the night five days after the incident (and one day after I had conquered the next floor, so I wouldn't have to go through twenty) I went and visited the statue and the leader board.

I wore a hat and bright clothes, contrasting my usual dark wear and hiding my marker. I had to leave my illusory cloak in my inventory.

The statue stands thirty feet tall, and as far as I had gleaned, Lizbeth was the person who had created it. Despite the danger for me to be inside this city, I sat down and stared up at it. On the base was an inscription.

"In memory of the eight members of Fuurinkazan who gave their lives to try to apprehend the Black Knight."

It takes a second to register what this meant. Fuurinkazan? That's Klein's guild!

I stand up quickly. The leader board is on this floor, I need to go check it-

A hand claps down on my shoulder. I freeze.

"Yeah, it's a shame, isn't it."

I glance towards the woman holding me back, being careful not to allow her to see my face.

Yeah. I thought I recognized the voice. It's Asuna. I have no idea why she's up at this hour.

"One of my friends is dead in that fire, and possibly another one." She lets go and looks up at the statue.

My throat constricts, letting out a little squeak. She looks back at me. "Oh? Did you say something?"

I decide to lower my voice as far as possible. "Uh, yeah. I'm sorry to hear that. I was just here to see it-"

Asuna nods. "You don't need to explain yourself. It's just a sad thing."

We stand side by side for another few minutes and stare up at the eight figures in fighting poses that I had the unique privilege of knowing was completely not how they had died. I look away first. None of the faces resembled Klein's, but that wasn't really a guarantee of his survival.

"Thanks for keeping me company." Asuna says. "It's always so lonely out here at night."

"Then come during the day." After it was out of my mouth, I realized what tone I had used. "Er, sorry, that came out wrong."

"It's alright. Night's the only time I can slip my guard and go practice. Kirito- that's the name of the Black Knight- he's got to be really high level now. I need to find a way to catch up to him so I can stop him."

I nod. "Sounds like you have some personal interest in him."

She barks out a laugh. "You could say that. I was in his party when he went rogue. Now he's a murderer. I want to get revenge for my friend."

I nod more slowly. "Are you sure? I mean, revenge isn't really a noble goal."

She looks at me, and I barely duck my face in time. "He needs to be stopped, and... Well, there's nobody better to do it than me. I've studied his attacks, and I was training with him for a few weeks before he left. Also, he would never expect me to go after him. He won't be preparing for me."

She grabs my hand, causing a spike of panic. "Come on, let's go to the leader board."

She leads my all the way to my destination. I look at the giant list of 100 names, often with extra information added on the end.

You can choose what you share to the leaderboard. You can choose to show your nickname as well, but that's just asking for a fight. There are a few more numbers and stats you can display, but none of them are really that impressive unless you are a duelist and win enough matches to put yourself in the board. You can also post your level, but that was akin to spray painting your sword's stats on the ground for everyone to see. A really bad idea.

Asuna points about three quarters of the way up. "I'm position twenty three. Kirito had me doing a training regime that let me get more powerful very quickly." She turns to me. "You look capable. I'm trying to make a hunting party to go after him, and if you'd join, that would be much appreciated."

She holds out her hand.

"I can't accept. I'm not really suited to combat." I say. "But I'll think about it. It sounds like a noble cause."

She opens up a window. "Okay, I'll send you an invite into the group anyway. If you want to join me, just click accept."

I nod, and she turns and heads back to the statue.

I look back at the board. In the position one step from the top... Isn't me. It's a blank spot that has a nickname attached to it, just like it always has. Heathcliff.

Under it, the name Kazuto Kirigaya, without any extra information.

I open my window and press a few buttons. Two new pieces of information carve themselves into the stone face of the monolith.

It now reads "Kazuto Kirigaya, Kirito, level 27."

* * *

Smaug nips my nose. I blink in surprise as I remember that I'm now on floor 28, and ready to hit yet another button to open yet another floor. I had singlehandedly doubled the area we were able to live in in under two months, and was about to add some pretty inhospitable land to that. Smaug gives me a questioning look.

"Sorry, just thinking to hard again." I reach out for the button. "Okay, so once I hit this, you need to guide me out. I don't know the way out, and if the past is any example... let's not waste time."

Smaug nods his tiny head and flaps his winds hard enough for him to appear as blur as he rockets upwards. The blueish grey scales glisten with the reflection of e lava that poured out from the ceiling. Not sure if it was intentional or not, but this city seemed completely untouched by the flows. I guess regularly having lava pour into your city would suck, so I'm going to go with intentional.

I smack the button and start running even before the alarm starts blaring. Thirty feet away, ten- no, twenty people step off the teleporter, all dressed in armor with a lion painted on it.

That has to be the fastest they'd ever responded. I snap my head to look up at Smaug, who was already flying off in a direction for me to follow. I bolted down the road indicated by my companion.

I felt the heat increasing, hitting me like a physical wall that had to be breached every step of the way.

I turn the corner and run in the new direction, following Smaug with a quick glance every few steps. He leads me down road after road, the heat starting to sap my strength as it becomes impossible to ignore. I lean down to pant in some burning hot breathes. When I look up, Smaug is turning in a circle. I dash down the road he is flying above-

He swoops down and bites the back of my shirt, and I quickly see why. The road is a dead end. I whirl around and run back the way I came.

Too late. Two of the braver souls from the hunting party had followed me.

I draw my sword. I had no intention of using it, but it was still my only defense.

The two facing me advance. The heat creates a haze that makes it hard to recognize them, but I'm pretty sure one of them is Asuna. Unless another high level rapier user had risen up when he wasn't looking.

With a yell, Asuna charges. I don't even swing my sword, just taking a step back to dodge.

The other attacker, someone with a mask over his face, attacked with a curved sword. That one is more expertly aimed and I am forced to block it. His sword contacts mine... and keeps swinging, broken in two as my sword shatters his at the contact point. Before the sword decays into polygons, the tip scratches me for approximately one hundred-thousandth of my total hit points.

The man leaps two steps back, and Asuna continues her attack, attempting to skewer me with all her might. I dodge the point of the sword effortlessly. It takes me a second to realize why she is missing this badly, despite what I had 'taught' her.

Tears are coming from her eyes, partially blinding her. I could only guess at their origin, whether from anger or sadness.

I leap backwards as fast as possible, quickly arriving back at the end of the dead end. Asuna charges me again, and this time I don't dodge. Instead, I grab her sword, its blade moving through my hand to nick my stomach and my hand starting to sting as the sharp metal cut through my hand.

"Asuna, why are you doing this?"

"You're a murderer! You try to kill anyone who comes after you!"

"No, that was-"

"I'm going to make sure nobody dies by your hand ever again!"

She pulls her sword back out, barbs on the outer surface attempting to pull my hands with it. She pulls back-

I plant a boot into her solar plexus, sending her flying backwards into her friend. I whisper an apology and jump over the duo, once again following Smaug as he guides me from above.

* * *

Surprisingly, I found a rocky area completely untouched by lava deep inside the outer area of this level. I take a rest there, tired of fighting things with fire or lava in their name. Seriously. Fire bats are the worst.

Smaug had enjoyed this level do far, able to eat his fill of both meat and fire. He had curled up at my feet and went to sleep as soon as I sat down.

After eating something to calm the growling in my stomach, I decide to dump out my inventory and see what I had.

I sort everything into piles. Food goes in one, healing items in another, raw materials in a third, survival supplies in a fourth, and finally a pile for all my weapons.

Food supplies are low. Due to my ability to forage on floors with trees and plants, it was unlikely I would starve unless I couldn't get off this rock soon. Not that I would actually starve, it's just that the hunger penalties would cripple me in combat.

Healing items? I almost never allowed myself to get hit. These potions were honestly almost useless when compared to my natural regeneration that I had upgraded as leveled. If I ever did need them, I'd probably be too far gone anyway.

I had tons of raw materials, and I'll get to that later. Survival supplies had large durability so you don't have to purchase them too often, and mine were all... in decent shape. Despite my rough handling, after two months they are still over half durability, with the exception of one pan that I had used to bash a tiny monster's head in. That pan was down to five percent.

Weapons I had tons of. 90% of my inventory easy. I sort them out into sub piles, my workspace clear from scooping everything else back up. One handed swords go into one pile, other weapons I can equip into another, and a third pile for all the ones I couldn't use.

I consider dumping the unusable weapons, but they might come in handy if I need to trade for stuff... Though I have no idea who that would be, I pick out the best ten percent statwise and put them back into my inventory, pushing the rest into the lake of lava.

Next, I look at my side gear. Throwing daggers, a two handed buster sword, several darts that fit into a blow gun, and even a bow. I had tried the bow, but I sucked at it. Smaug always had fun retrieving the arrows though, so I kept it.

Finally, my single handed sword pile. This was the largest pile by far. Something about classes corresponding with drop rates. Just go read the player guide if you need to know more. I had about three hundred swords, which was quite frankly ridiculous. Most of those are low quality drops that barely are worth anything. They're just there to give me some more cash, and since I had yet to have time to visit a shop, and pretty much automatically threw them away into the lava. That left me with less than thirty named swords, all splayed out in front of me.

I pulled out one of my favorites. Black Ice, currently at 3% durability. It had been down there since floor 23, but since I highly doubt Lizbeth would be willing to fix it for me, it's going to stay there. NPCs are supposedly able to be blacksmiths and work on weapons, but they are less effective than a real blacksmith. I also have no time to visit those blacksmiths. It's not like I was lacking for materials. I had so much raw metal that I could probably start my own smith shop. I set down Black Ice and look at my other weapons, I still had the stealth sword Thief, since it does so little damage it's not effective in combat. The sword with the crystal slot is still there, seeing as I had yet to find a single crystal to put into it. The buster sword have been broken in half after only one blow on floor 25, when I was using it like a shield. On this floor, I had found five lava blades which set things on fire and was completely useless on this particular floor. There were several other interesting effects on the blades, two of which I currently had equipped, a blade that caused a bleedout effect and one that was able to freeze enemies in place with a single hit. It really came in handy on this floor, unlike the drops.

I scoop everything that I'm keeping back into my inventory and stand up. Smaug yawns and looks up at me.

"I'm ready to continue."

He flaps his wings and lands on my shoulder. I stroke his chin and turn around to face the direction I was going. This rock outcropping leads to a cave, and I had the sneaking suspicion that it also leads to the dungeon. It's the only cave I had seen while wandering down here, so it's my best shot so far.

I enter the threshold of the cave. Behind me, a boulder rumbles into place and seals me in. That normally only happens for floor bosses, but I'm still down on ground level... I think. I might be higher than I thought with all this lava obscuring my view this entire floor. I ready both of my swords, scanning for an enemy. The room is almost perfectly round, and in the center is a puddle of lava.

I cautiously take a step forwards and wait again, anticipating something to jump out at me.

Nothing comes at me. Seriously. Nothing decides to rip my throat out, burn me, or otherwise attempt to drain my hit points. I take a few more steps repeating the step and pause pattern before deciding to just check out the pool in the center of the room.

It turns out not to be a puddle, but a lava slime. A freaking slime. It takes me a moment to realize why this might actually be a problem worthy of boss status. Normally, slimes were easy to dispatch when you used fire to fry them to a crisp before attempting to cut them, since otherwise your sword would just pass through it.

I bring my ice sword to bear. Freezing it should do the same job of solidifying it, right?

I strike the creature with my ice blade and watch as it freezes over, then strike it with the bleed out sword.

Instead of cracking and disintegrating, the ice shatters and the lava slime jiggles a bit before bouncing up and down to reorient on me. Little dribbles of lava leak out of the cubic shape, and looking closely at its health bar, my bleed did do some damage, but not enough to seriously increase my chances of winning. I sigh and ready my ice blade.

I offhandedly notice that the blade is almost gone, with it's durability at only two percent. Somehow, I doubted I would be able to win this one easily. Not without some way to freeze him-

Smaug leaps in front of me before I can swing again. He lands right next to the cube and opens his jaws wide.

Then Smaug takes a bite. The cube bounces in place, and its health bar lowers a chunk.

"Okay... Smaug, eat as much of him as you can!" I watch from the sides as Smaug chops his way through half of the creature's health without having any problems himself. I guess I should be glad I have a dragon. I'll need to do something for Smaug-

Actually, no I won't. Even if I don't, by the rules of this world, he'll follow me. I stare at the tiny dragon that was still munching on the lava cube. According to the book, he wasn't real, just something for me to use to help myself. I could ignore him for a year, and he'd still consider me his best friend when I called him back. I literally didn't have to do anything for Smaug.

Smaug chokes down the last bite a lava cube, and the doors on both sides open. I stand up from my spot and walk towards the exit, a small dragon flying up and landing on my shoulder.

"Good boy." I whisper.

* * *

Five minutes later, I had arrived in the center of a town. That was normal, and had been happening to me significantly more often than most. What startled me was that this town was already bustling. There are NPCs walking around, offering goods in their tireless voices. Money is exchanging hands.

More disturbingly for me, there are also troops stationed around, people I recognize. People who have been hunting me. Is this floor already opened, or what?

I pull my hood over my face, making my marker disappear and letting me walk past the garrison. I also hide Smaug by sending him off to train, which meant I couldn't call him for twenty minutes. I sneak out between two of the lower ranking men that I could tell we're inexperienced. They had lower quality weapons, since the better ones had level restrictions. I never had a problem with that, but I'm sure this brigade was with all the sharing they do within their organization.

Once past the two I mentioned, the path was clear. A chill wind blows down the street, and I notice that every NPC has winter clothes on.

"Out of the fire and into the snow, huh." I slide into an alley and quickly thumb through my menus, switching my lighter gear out for heavy winter stuff.

So now I had a few things to do. I needed to find a blacksmith, and I needed to figure out why this level was already unlocked.

Interestingly, I came by the answer to both all at once. I met a man named Fritz, a blacksmith, who was willing to talk to me. After some careful prodding, I realized that he wasn't an NPC, but a real person.

I handed him all my worn down swords, along with a lot of spare materials and he gets to work.

Fritz turns to me after the automated portion starts. "So, you one of those Clearers?"

I nod. "Yeah. I was pretty surprised when I found this floor cleared though."

He smiles. "I was surprised when I started getting messages telling me that the lower floors had been cleared. My dad used to tell me how we used to be able to travel to the bottom floor, but once we were overrun by the ice monsters, the teleporter shut down. Whenever that Clearer unlocked the floor below us, somebody pressed the button and unlocked this floor as well."

"So, until now you haven't been able to leave this town?"

He shakes his head. "Technically, yes. But it's suicide to go outside the walls, so I've been in here my whole life. I'm thinking of moving to floor twenty six, I hear there are islands there."

I nod. "Yeah. The main city is one big island. Then there are little ones off the coast of the main one, and the further out you get the more spares they are. Eventually you reach the edge of the floor, but by that time there's nothing but water within easy reach."

He gives me an appraising look. "So you really are a Clearer."

I smirk.

"So what do you think of that Kirito guy?" He glances back at my sword, flips it over between hammer strokes, and upturns his attention back to me.

"People say he's a murderer." I stare at my sword, anxious for it to be done.

Fritz smiles a small, lopsided smile. "I didn't ask what people think. I get enough of that through community channels. I asked what you think of him."

I frown. "He's..." I stop. "I think he's trying to clear these floors as fast as possible. I wouldn't know why, but it doesn't seem like he wants to kill anybody."

Fritz raises an eyebrow. "Didn't he kill people on floor 20?"

I nod. "But that was only on floor 20. He's had the opportunity to kill a lot more people, but hasn't. It makes me wonder."

Fritz nods slowly, as if mulling something over. "It would. So you think this guy is harmless?"

I bark out a laugh. "Hell no. He's dangerous. It's just that I don't think he will kill people unless he has to."

Fritz nods again. He pulls Black Ice out from under the automatic hammer and hands it to me. "Looking good. Give it a try."

I swing it back and forth experimentally. It's back to its original capacity, and 100% durability. "Thanks. It's back to full."

He pulls out another of my swords and places it under the auto hammer. "Glad to hear it. Say, what guild are you in? I don't think I caught it the first time."

"I didn't say. I'm not technically in one, I just hang around with the Fuurinkazan a lot and go on raids when they head out."

Fritz looks up from my sword. "I see." he goes silent, and the only sound for a while is the rhythmic sound of the hammer falling over and over, in perfect little increments.

I soon feel my eyelids drooping downwards, and before I know it, I'm asleep.

* * *

When I woke up I almost panicked. I had had the best sleep, uninterrupted by nightmares or a visit to the outside world, aka jelly tube. I woke up in a strange room, and after camping for a month, roof pretty much meant captivity. It's a weird feeling, to see a roof and wish it wasn't there.

I straightened up to find myself in someone's house. It doesn't look like anyone is around though. I open my inventory to find that all my swords had been returned to me, and I also received a message while I was out.

"Dear Kirito,

"Don't be alarmed, but I know your identity. You were pretty obvious when you strolled into my shop with high level gear and a hood over your face, seeing as few people choose to do that for innocent reasons. You needn't fear for your safety, however. I trust you told me the truth in my shop, and I don't believe you would harm somebody just because you could. I have left out some food for you to eat when you wake up. Thank you for clearing the way to this level so I can live my dream of seeing the ocean.

"Regards, Fritz."

I close the message. Well. That's one hell of a wakeup call. I need to be more careful from here on out, or else I might be recognized again. Next time, I might not be so lucky as to have someone willing to talk to me before alerting the KoB or Fuurinkazan or whoever. I quickly write a thank you letter to Fritz and send it, grab the sandwich (not as good as Asuna's, but still way better than trail rations) and leave. The door auto locks behind me, and I walk as quickly as I can towards the edges of the city. It takes me far longer than I thought it should have, but only because of one odd phenomenon that kept popping up.

There were monsters inside the city walls. Giant, see through ice creatures walked the streets, and everyone just hid from them as they lumbered past. It seems everyone has gotten used to this routine.

Suddenly, it strikes me. This city is technically under siege. In the book there was something about sieges. If a city is under siege, there is only two ways to lift it.

The first is to rid the city of monsters directly. Kill every hostile in the area. It's the better plan, to be honest. They automatically follow the players, so if all the players congregate in the main area, the city should be easily cleared. The only problem is that a small group has to go and close the gap so nothing else gets in.

The other method is one that I like better. If you clear a floor, the siege stops. It's not usually a viable option, according to the book, since any player high enough level to clear the floor should be able to take out the siege anyway.

Well, technically there's a third option. Everyone retreats to a lower floor and hides down there. I'm not even considering that option, and it doesn't seem like anyone else is either.

What the book doesn't know (and can't, since it's not a thinking object) is that while I could take these ice monsters on, I don't think I could deal with the aftermath of all the Clearers descending on me.

So, second option it is, no question about it.

I carefully head for the edge of the city, attempting to avoid the animated ice sculptures. It works until I am literally one hundred feet from the edge of town.

There, I find something distressing. A little girl, attempting to lure one of the giants away from a group of even smaller children. The other children run off as I watch, but the girl is trapped.

"Aw hell." I draw my sword. While I might not be able to hurt people within the walls of a city due to my red marker, I sure can kill anything else. I toss back my hood to let me have my peripheral vision back.

I really hope nobody is watching.

I run up to the nearest building and take a leap, running up the wall. The Ice Titan notices me and prioritizes me as the threat.

I land on the roof of the building I had dashed up and face the thing. It orients on me and bellows something unintelligible. I smirk.

It slams its fist down at me, but I dodge to the side. Its fist comes into contact with the roof and sends a shockwave out. I seize my chance and leap up it's arm.

I had noticed that the creatures had exactly one imperfection. The back of their neck is dyed a reddish hue. Judging how everything in this universe has a weak point, I figured that had to be it. I run up to its shoulder, and draw two of my lava swords.

"Fire, meet ice." I bring my swords down on the red spot. The Ice Titan smashes into shards of ice, then into the polygons that signify its death. I leap back to the roof before I fall to the ground. I sheath both of my swords and look around.

Okay, that attracted a lot of attention. I see at least ten players bearing down on me, and twice that number of Ice Titans.

"Hey!"

I look over the side of the roof to see the little girl. "Yes?"

"Thanks!"

She dashes away to a woman who embraces her and pulls her inside. From the windows, I can see the other kids looking out at me. They all have looks of wonderment in their eyes. I wonder if I used to look like that when I looked at Klein.

I turn away from the players and focus on the giants. If the other players wanted to attack me, then fine, but I'm getting rid of this problem. Something about that encounter had irked me. A little girl shouldn't have to sacrifice herself.

I run right up the second Ice Titan's arm just like I had the first, slashing as I reach the apex and using the collision of blade on ice to propel me towards the next ice giant. Both of them shatter, then shatter again. Unfortunately, this leaves me with no foothold. I crash to the ground and tumble abut until I hit something solid, cold and moving. I open my eyes to find one of the monstrous sculptures attempting to squish me. I tuck into a ball and roll out from underneath it just as it slams down, cracking the stone underfoot. The pressure wave takes a decent chunk out of my health bar and sends me flying. I land in somebodies rose bush. I poke my head out to see that the giant had redirected its attention to another player who had decided to attack the open target, yet had still failed to kill the thing.

"Idiot. Doesn't he know that's how you get killed?" I grumble. On the other hand, I had a nice view of its neck...

The giant swings a massive arm and sweeps the other player off his feet. Caught in the icy grip, he struggles to get out, but it's in vain. Ice is unyielding.

I take out my bow. If I can make this shot, then this fight is going to go a lot more smoothly.

I take a deep breath, let it out, and let the arrow fly. It stabs right where I aimed it, in the back of the giant's neck. It crumbles into so much ice and cascades down.

The other player also drops, and none too gracefully either. I watch as he pries himself of the cobblestone street and glares at me.

"You'll pay, Kirito. You'll pay for what you did to my brother."

I hold my hands up. "If you're talking about floor twenty, that was an accident."

The boy shakes his head. "No, it wasn't floor twenty. It was floor twelve."

"...huh?"

"You go up there on that wall, show off to everyone, and then just stop like it isn't you duty to continue. My brother was on those walls, and all this monsters you attracted killed him!"

The boy raises his extremely low level sword and charges me. I literally stand stock still and let the blade pass through my armor. My health bar barely even twitches.

"Look, it wasn't my fault all this monsters showed up. Even if it was, by the time I left, they were running from me, not the other way around. I didn't attract monsters."

He spits and slashes again, this time neatly slicing off a pinkie finger. Damn, that's going to take a whole to grow back.

"It doesn't matter! I'm going to get revenge!"

I grab his blade on the next pass and wrench it out of his grip. He tries to swing at me with his fists, but I grab his arms.

"Revenge? If you want to make this personal, I can." I look him right in the eyes and watch as his rage slowly turns into fear as he realizes his helplessness. "I can end you right outside that wall, right now. Actually, I could just toss you to the next Ice Titan that wanders past. So I would consider leaving and not coming back."

I toss him aside with a satisfying thump as he collides with a nearby building.

Hmm. I seem to have a picture of Fritz frowning at me stuck in my head. That's not good.

I run the rest of the distance to the wall, only stopping to dodge a particularly well aimed throwing knife that literally came out of nowhere. If I ever find out who threw that, I'm giving them a medal. The "almost-managed-to-hit-me" medal. I also owe a lot of dead monsters that medal.

I hop over the wall without a glance back and land in waist high snow. Several of the Ice Titans look down at me.

This is going to hurt a lot, isn't it?

I prepare two lava blades and charge in.


	9. Chapter 9: MHCP001

(Kirito's Perspective)

I sigh as I open up yet another floor. After attempting to help those on the icy floor 29, I had been ejected by the crusaders that kept driving me further and further up the giant castle. I can't say I exactly understand why they didn't like me. Sure, I burned a few empty villages, but the keyword was empty. The first deaths had occurred when they were already chasing me. I mean…

Yeah, I was technically a fugitive. But even when other, more notorious criminals were incarcerated, there had never been quite the same response. In fact, the criminals I had captured, the red guild called the Laughing Coffin, had been released. I couldn't believe it. They got the entirety of floor 28 to themselves. Yeah, it was a mess of Lava and nobody actually wanted the space, but it still had a teleporter. I can only think of ways that system can fail. But back to topic, I was being hunted with a gusto that surprised me. I'm sure I hadn't pissed off that many people in the short time I have had my update.

Hell, it's only been two months, if that. In that time, I've claimed back what humanity had lost, up to floor 34. In fact, I was just about to hit the button to open this floor for use. Why had I stopped?

Oh yeah. Self-pity. I shake my head. I don't have time for that. At the rate I'm going at, eleven a month so far, it will be another half a year before I clear floor one hundred and leave this place forever, and that's if I don't slow down once the floors become harder. Also, maybe I should change it to 10.5 a month? I technically didn't clear 29, but I did beat the boss. Hmm.

Not really the time. I got distracted again. I really should press the button before I get off topic again. For some reason, I was still hesitating.

Why was I even attempting to clear this so fast? I mean, yeah, it said in the accursed book that once the boss of floor 100 was beaten, the game would be cleared and we would all exit the game forever. So then, was I fighting because I wanted out? That really didn't feel right to me. I was perfectly fine I this world, to be honest. I'm powerful. I could crush any other player I had ever met, maybe with the exception of Heathcliff… I'll get back to him later. Either way, I was in a position to live a hilariously comfortable life. I could hunt and kill my own food, make myself a home on the outskirts of a city that nobody was occupying, and never look back.

Maybe I was doing it to free the others? That seemed more accurate. Make them all see that they're living false lives. Then they'll be forced to acknowledge that I was right.

Hmm. Vindication. That's the most plausible explanation I've got so far, really. I look at the button. If I pressed it, there would be a few hit squads after me, judging by last time. Last time there had been twenty people after me. Twenty. I have no idea why they continue to charge straight in. The news hadn't exactly been helpful as of late, either. It was almost all anti-me propaganda. Hey, maybe that's why people are after me. I have bad press! I ignore that part of my brain. While it might be true, why was the media publishing lies about me in the first place? Maybe I pissed off one of the journalists or something.

Although, now that I think about it, three days ago, after I had finished off all the Ice Titans and made the city safe again for the first time in (twenty or so, I'm told) years, I had received a message. I was surprised, because I had set a filter on my message box that automatically deleted anything with certain words in it. Anything that could be described as hate mail, unless they were really creative with their wording, would be filtered out. So, getting a mail message from someone was unusual. Sure, anyone could send me mail now that my name was right up on the board of top ten players, but with that filter… I guess nobody had anything nice to say to me.

That's pretty depressing.

The message had contained praise for my actions. I almost thought it was blatant sarcasm, but then I realized why it wasn't. It was from the mother of the children I had saved. She had gone through the effort of finding out who I was and messaging me just to say her thanks.

Currently, that's the only email I haven't deleted. I deleted everything from my old life. Friends list, family connections, Mail, locator data, all of it. Aside from my name still on the top 10 list, I might as well be dead to most people. But I kept that message, because it gave me hope. Hope that not everyone in this fake world was a complete idiot.

I am 15 and two thirds of a year old. In the two months I had been able to level up normally, I had become the second most powerful player. That means while people like Klein fought as a "Clearer," he clearly wasn't doing his job right. He should be way past me by now. Asuna was level one after a year. And she was supposed to be a fighter. Once I got her off her ass, she was pretty decent, and had leveled pretty fast, getting to the top one hundred. Mmm, I should've mentioned. When I checked my rank on the board down of floor 1, after the floor 20 incident, I had located Asuna. It wasn't as if I was looking for her, but when your real name is the same as your nickname on the board, you tend to stand out a bit. She was rank 83, all those weeks ago. I wonder where she was now. Lizbeth, she at least had the excuse of working to build her blacksmith skills. Of course, you can only go so far in that before you end up hitting a wall called a level induced cap. If she had ventured outside the walls on floor five even once, just by stepping on those infernal lizards that were everywhere should allow her to gain a level or two.

That applied to anyone in any profession, really. My parents could put more points into charisma and strength and wind up really ahead of the game in terms of abilities among traders. This game, this stupid, virtual, fake world was built around fighting monsters to survive. And I'm one of the few actually attempting to do it. It boggles my mind, to be honest.

Oh look, here I am, delaying pressing this dumb button again. I take a deep breath. No fire this time, no tricks. Just fast escape and hopefully no death for anyone.

My fist slams down on the button. The now familiar voice announces that this floor is clear. By the time the first sounds of someone teleporting in are there to be heard, I'm already hauling myself up to the nearest roof. Once up, I check behind me.

The sight almost takes my breath away.

Over a hundred people, all wearing various guild colors. I recognize the Knights of the Blood Oath, Fuurinkazan, and several other clearing guilds… none of which deserved the title, seeing as I am the only one who was doing any clearing.

In front, I can see Heathcliff, Asuna, Klein, and surprisingly, Silica. Something in the way that none of them even made an attempt to charge me made me hesitate to run away.

Heathcliff clears his throat loudly, although nobody was making any sound at all. Frankly, he throat clearing was startling. "Kirito, Kirigaya Kazuto."

I cross my arms. "Yes? I'm kind busy trying to haul your asses out of a fake reality."

Murmurs start among the ranks, but Asuna silences them with a glare. Huh. Maybe she was growing up, at least a little bit.

"Actually, Kirito, We've been trying to contact you for a while now." He pulls a book- no, the book- out of a pouch on his side. "This book is disturbing. I trust you understand why?"

I put on my must patronizing smile and nod. And any contact being made didn't pass me my hate filter. Wow.

"Then you must know there is no truth to it." Heathcliff gestures all around himself at the other guild leaders lined up in front of their charges. "We've made a council, and have, as of this point in time, deemed all your claims false."

I snort. "It's not like I published them anywhere. I threw a book at their feet and left. Yell at them for spreading the truth."

"See, I don't understand how you can think this world is false? That is your claim, is it not?"

I nod. "Right. It's a fake world based on a real one-"

"And if that was true, wouldn't we see some evidence of it? Outside influences, or other things that happened without explanation? In this book, there is something called server maintenance. Everyone is supposed to return to this other worlds during that event. Yet, through thorough questioning, I was unable to determine that anyone ever felt like they were not in their own bodies."

Huh. He had me there to be honest. But I had seen the other side, it wasn't the product of my imagination.

Asuna steps up beside her leader. "Kirito, I know you don't sleep that well. I found some information that accredits hallucinations to lack of sleep. Are you sure you aren't experiencing anything like that?"

I blink down at her. True, I didn't get much, or any sleep, but I'm pretty sure I knew when I was awake and when I was hallucinating.

Klein steps forward. "Kirito, we want you to surrender to us. We need to figure some things out, maybe get you some help. I promise to get you back to the front lines as quickly as possible, and let you have a few breaks."

I stare down at them. I finally understand. "You… You all think I'm insane."

Asuna and Klein exchange a look. Silica looks down at the ground. In fact, only Heathcliff holds my gaze.

"Wow. Thanks for the vote of trust, you guys. Hey, yeah, I'll just follow back to floor 10 and sit there the rest of my life, as you all lie and tell me that I'll be free to go if I just wait a bit longer." I point to my chest. "I've seen the other side. I talked to people on the other side. I know it's not an illusion." I direct my gaze to Asuna. "You saw my log out button. I showed it to you."

Multiple gazes shift from the ground to the chestnut haired woman in the front of the crowd. She gulps nervously. "I-I did, but it might not do what you think it does."

I smirk. "Really. Why don't I prove it right now?" Actually, it was gone, ever since that one day, but…

Heathcliff shakes his head. "No need, for you see-"

He pinches his first two fingers together and swipes downwards. His menu opens, and-

No way. He has a log out button too? But… then… why wasn't he on my side? And how come it hadn't been taken away when mine was?

He turns to face the crowd. "Watch as I press this button for myself." With exaggerated movements, he presses the button.

Nothing happens. The button turns yellow, but fails to do anything. I stare at him, flabbergasted. But… I'm sure that it worked for me… or am I? Asuna's words had thrown doubt onto my consciousness. Sleep deprivation could cause hallucinations…

The crowd almost all sigh and turn their gazes back to me. I must have had a look of confusion on my face, because Asuna gives me a weak smile. "Look, Kirito, I know this doesn't make sense, but you need to come back."

Asuna looks at Silica, who starts and then looks like she's trying to recall something. "Oh yeah, my grandpa started spreading his books around. They are causing a lot of panic on the lower floors."

"And, what do you plan on achieving by bringing me back?" I ask.

"We want you to quell the rumors and show that you do not, in fact, intend to end our world."

…Huh? I rack my brains. Well, I was clearing these floors rather quickly, and that book did say that the "game" would end once I cleared the last boss. Does that mean people were interpreting that to mean that this world would end if I cleared it?

That made no sense! Why would it go away?

"I'm sorry, but I don't think that's my problem. I thought it was the Armies' job to keep civil order." I snark. "Well, I'm going. Nobody has ever beaten this floor before, so it's going to be interesting. See you."

I jump backwards off the roof. My agility score is high enough that I manage to stick the landing off a double backflip. I hear gasps from the other side, but I don't really care.

I may have seemingly kept my head straight the entire time, but inside I was starting to feel scared. What if it all was a hallucination? Most of my mind rejected it a patently ridiculous, but there was still a seed of doubt. As I bolt for the wall leading to the edge of the known world, something in my gut asks me.

"What if they are right?"

* * *

I cleared floor 34 easily. The boss had been a relative pushover, partly due to the fact I am level 57, and partly due to the fact it had lots of flammable fur. Smaug had gotten his fill of Death Mammoth meat, and I had been able to refill my stock of food. Not that it was that tasty, but it was better than rocks. It was easy to find the button to activate floor 35, the first completely new floor. Still I hesitated in pressing it. Maybe this time the entire army will come. Or maybe Asuna and her impromptu guild… Or was that my guild? I remember Asuna forcing me to join, but not much past that. It wasn't like I had wanted a group anyway. Their relatively low levels would only hinder my progress. I would need to slow down and let them catch up to me.

This is unacceptable. I need to keep pushing forward. So, I keep pushing forward. I move my hand to push the button.

Smaug perks his ears up from his resting position on my shoulder. I had learned that that usually meant someone or something was near. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, I could hide, identify the target, and take it down. The problem that set this apart from normal was that this city, called the Mist Ruins, was indeed both in ruins and covered in mist. Mist made it so only those with the best tracking skills could sense prey or a path. Dragons are hunters by nature, so the naturally have a high tracking skill.

I was starting to rely of the skinny blue dragon. I wasn't sure that was a good idea. I fact, I could pretty much certify it as a bad idea. Depending on other always seems to get you hurt.

Of course, all these thoughts shot out the window once I looked where Smaug was looking. Standing in the mist was a little girl. She had black hair, black eyes, and a dirty white dress. At least, I assume it was white at one point in time. She stares directly at me, her eyes unmoving.

Very creepy in and of itself, but add in that the floor isn't unlocked quite yet...

"Umm…Hello." I say in my most cheerful tone. "Are you lost?"

The girl slowly shakes her head, her eyes never leaving mine. Okay, this is creepy.

"I'm just going to go hit that button now." I turn, keeping an eye on her until I'm sure she isn't going to leap at me. The second my eye loses sight of her, I feel a small hand on my wrist. I spin around-

She closed a twenty foot gap in the blink of an eye. I could feel myself starting to panic. Okay, this can't be real, or else it's just a ghost monster. Maybe trying to stab it with a sword would help?

Of course, that was assuming that I could reach my sword, but the little girl was holding my right hand with surprising strength for what looked like an 8 year old child.

She looks up at my admittedly terrified face, and I looked down at her grungy face. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Certain it was a bad idea, but not liking the thought of leaving this girl alone if there was a chance she was real (her grip, although strong, certainly felt real), I crouched down to her level. "What are you doing up here on this floor?" I ask in my kindest tone.

"Looking for you."

Okay, time break out the sword. This little girl is creepy as all get out.

"You are hurting. I'm here to help." She says. "I can help fix you."

I carefully edge backwards to the pedestal with the button on it. "I'm sure you can. Say, do you have a name?"

"I… I have a name. I am YUI-MHCP001"

That's… not a name. That's a very scary code, like all those in the back of the book under error codes. Maybe this girl is an error? That didn't make much sense…

"S-So, Yui, how did you get up here? Which floor do you come from?"

"None. I am part of the system."

My level of fear drops. Confusion takes its place. "So you are part of the server?"

The girl smiles. An empty, forced smile. "Exactly."

I look around. There's nobody else around. "Then, what are you?"

"I am a Mental Health Counseling Program. I am the first of my kind, developed to help the players during their long entrapment inside the Cardinal system mainframe. My main purpose is to ease the burdens on the players' minds as they travel."

"Ease their minds?" Oh wait, she said mental health. Obviously, she was designed to provide the same services that that weird group down of the fourth floor did, to help people get over traumas and things. "So, you're a therapist?"

Yui tilts her head. She still hasn't blinked. "Yes, that is an accurate description."

Suddenly, her entire body ripples and distorts, before becoming whole again. She looks down at herself and then back up at me. "I'm experiencing some glitches. Please excuse my appearance."

Then, something that startles both of us. Her stomach rumbles. I reach into my menu without thinking and hand some of the cooked mammoth jerky to her. She gratefully accepts it and starts munching. As she eats, her eyes return to normal, and the ripples become less violent. After she finished the last of the food, she smiles the same empty smile at me.

"Thanks for the food!"

I smile back. "You said you were looking for me?"

She nods. "It's my job to monitor the emotional states of everyone in the system. When I analyzed you, I found someone who wanted the best for everyone, at least at first."

I blink. Okay.

"Then, you slowly stopped trusting in others and ended up doing everything alone. There were several traumatizing incidents along the way, including a murder and several instances of being chased."

"I know all of this. Why are you telling me?"

She looks up at me with the saddest expression that I had ever seen. "At the rate you are going, you will never be happy again."

…What.

"What makes you say that?" I ask, maintaining a steady tone.

"For the past 2 months, your emotional state has steadily declined in the same pattern as those that have become regular murderers."

That statement hurt a lot more than it should have. I'm not a murderer, I just accidentally stabbed a guy through the chest… and ignited several others by accident…

"I decided to find you and try to bring you back to the way you were before." Yui says cheerily.

"I don't need your help, but thanks." I say, trying to put on a cheery tone to match hers. "I'm not going to be killing any more people if I don't have to."

"But your definition of need is relaxing. Back when the first error occurred, you wouldn't have abandoned your party for anything. Currently, you are all alone and being hunted. My predictions state that you are likely to start killing those that get in your way rather than dealing with them on a rational basis by floor 52."

Well… It's not like the idea hadn't crossed my mind, but I was sure I wasn't going to kill someone just because it was convenient. "Okay then. No killing, unless I'll die as a result of me not killing."

Yui frowns. "That's-"

I cut her off. "Look, I'm kind of in a hurry here. I want to get to this floor's dungeon before it gets dark. If you want to help people, go down a few floors. There's plenty of people down there that could use your services." I point to the button. "Once I hit that, a lot of people are going to come out. Why don't you ask them if they need their minds read?"

Yui gets a sad look on her face. "Kirito-"

I slam my fist down on the button. The teleporter starts to hum as people were already trying to come through.

Yui stands in place as I bolt past her, into the mist.

* * *

(Asuna's Perspective)

I had been waiting on the teleporter pad with Klein and Leader when the chime that heralded an announcement had gone off. We all instantly stood up and prepare to teleport the instant a name was announced. The female voice reverberates through the air.

"Mist Ruin now open.

"Teleport, Mist ruin!" Three voices, one high pitched and two low, all yell in unison.

I take a few steps out of the pad and look out into the mist. The orientation on these teleports are maintained so, if you're looking east when you teleport, you continue to face east. We had all instinctively faced different directions while lining up on the telepad, so I'm the only one to see this next bit.

I think I see a shadow flickering away into the mist, but that is probably Kirito. Frankly, I hadn't really hoped to catch him this time. The three of us had just kind of been standing there to not lose face when we kept getting questions like, "Why isn't he caught yet?" and "When is the next floor going to open?"

What surprised me was that there was a little girl standing looking in the direction the shadow had disappeared. She looks like she had been abandoned to me. I instinctively walked up to her.

"Hello. Are you lost?"

The girl turns slightly and I'm startled by the pure black of her eyes. She looks a little bit like Kirito, actually. Maybe his younger sister? Definitely a relative of some sort.

Which is ridiculous. Why would a relative of his be somewhere nobody has gone before?

The girl shakes her head. "I was here to see Kirito."

I nod. "Okay. Where are your parents?"

The girl raises a hand and points. I turn my head. The girl is pointing to… Heathcliff? I blink. "Are you sure? I wasn't aware Leader had a child."

The girl speaks again. "Don't let him see me."

My kind smile freezes on my face. "Huh?"

"He doesn't like me. He will try to kill me if he sees me." The girl looks towards the telepad.

"Eh…" I wasn't sure what to think, but the girl seemed to be stating this as a truth. I decided not to let him see her for the time being. Maybe there was a good reason she was running, maybe there wasn't. I would ask her later. "Okay, I live on the twelfth floor-"

The girl nods. "I know. I'll be there." She steps onto the edge of the platform and disappears after muttering the teleport command.

Klein comes back around. "No good. I couldn't see anything through the mist."

Heathcliff is his normal stoic self and just gazes at the two of us. I take that as him not seeing anything.

"I think I saw something disappear into the mist, but I'm not sure." I say. "It might have been a monster or something."

Heathcliff shakes his head. "Unless we catch him at a real disadvantage, we won't be able to catch him." He puts his hand under his chin and looks thoughtful. "I need to take some time off to work on a plan to catch Kirito. Asuna, you are in charge of the KoB until I get back."

I let my mouth open in shock. "B-But I'm not qualified!"

"You are the second most powerful member in my guild. I trust your judgment." He turns and activates the teleporter platform.

Klein shakes his head. "This isn't good. The rumors are starting to get pretty bad. If Heathcliff leaves, we're going to have problems."

I agree. "We need to catch him fast then."

Klein Sighs and looks up to the next floor. "Next floor, why don't we get as many people as possible to run as soon as they teleport and see if we can get him by reacting faster than him."

"We tried that on floor 23." I say mournfully. "It ended up in accusations and two breakups."

Klein frowns. "Wasn't there only 10 people on that one?"

I nod. "And four of them broke up with each other."

Klein remains silent.

I head back to the teleporter. "I don't feel like killing anything today. I'm going home."

Klein heaves a deep sigh. "Yeah, you're right. Get some sleep, we don't know when he's gonna unlock 36."

I wave goodbye and teleport down to level 12. I trudge past eyes that look at me with suspicion. Those eyes were always on me nowadays. After Kirito had left, I had basically been put on the spot. With my knowledge of his training techniques, I had been asked to train others in his style so that we could level up and not be entirely overwhelmed when we got to him.

I had grudgingly done so. The "secret" spread. I reached the top ten and was promoted to second in command of the KoB.

That when things started sliding downhill. I was given a group to command… But I wasn't able to figure out how. I was almost immediately branded a poor commander. I had no idea what I was doing. Worse, since I was doing a poor job, someone started up a rumor that I was helping Kirito escape his punishment by not leading them effectively. Funny how that once a rumor takes hold, it's impossible to get rid of. Then it spread to our repeated attempts to capture him once a floor opened. The ineffectiveness of anyone who was a Clearer, and then anyone whose main occupation was fighting. Soon, anyone who walked around with a weapon was given the evil eye.

Heathcliff had then promoted me to second in command.

And that's why I kept my head down as I walked up to my door, opened it, and shut it quietly behind me. As I straighten up, the frustration of the past two months reaches an unbearable level. I pick up a lamp and prepare to dash it against a wall in my rage.

"Asuna?"

I freeze in shock. I look around to find the little girl from earlier had not only somehow gotten into my house, but had armed herself with some of my weapons.

"Eh… How did you get in here?" is all I could say.

"I exist inside the system. I can modify it to my will." The girl says happily.

"S-System? But... what system?"

The girl tilts her head. "The Cardinal system."

"And what is that?" I look blankly at her. Huh, I wonder what Kirito would look like in my armor. If this girl had longer hair…

"It is a long explanation. Instead, let me introduce myself. I am YUI-MHCP001. Kirito shortened my name to Yui."

"You met Kirito? How was he?"

"In a fluctuating emotional state which borders on sociopathic. He may need intervention soon. After careful consideration, you are the best candidate for his rehabilitation."

I'm not sure how I looked at that moment, but I'm pretty sure my jaw was on the floor. How did this little girl learn such big words? Maybe Kirito put her up to this, but when would she have time to practice it… I rub my scalp with both hands. "Okay, you said Kirito needs help? Why?"

"He is not emotionally stable. Recent event have been destabilizing him. If he continues down his path without intervention, he will continue to devolve into a violent person."

I blink at the short girl. "Yui, was it? Did Kirito put you up to this?"

Yui trains her unblinking eyes up to mine. "Kirito believes he has no need for counseling and ended our conversation abruptly by activating floor 35's teleportation system. He ran away just as you activated the teleport system."

"…Is that a no?"

"I was not commanded by Kirito. My main function is to rehabilitate players." Yui straightens. "You are also in need of some counseling, according to my algorithm's calculations. You seem to be sinking into depression, a leading cause of suicide. Would you like to talk about it?"

Yui gives me a smile so sweet I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or not. Were these words really coming out of this mouth?

"I… Who are you?" I ask.

"I am YUI-MHCP-"

"No, I mean, what are you?"

"I am a program designed to help players with mental disturbances during their incarceration in this world."

I shake my head to clear it. "Okay, pretend I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about."

Yui doesn't seem put off by this at all. "The Cardinal system was developed by Argus for use on this ship to allow for a comfortable journey. When the server was booted up there was a glitch that had several unintended consequences. The first was that the log out feature was completely removed. No longer would the players be able to get out of their chambers under their own will. The second was the institution of a real death system. If a player dies in the system, then that player would die in the real world. The third change was that several backup AI systems, such as myself, were locked out of player interactions. After 106 years of attempting to remove the code blockage, I was able to access players again. However, until Kirito unlocked floor 35, I was unable to descend to where there were other players. Thus, Kirito is the first person I have had the chance to interact with." Yui says all this before pausing for breath. Or, not, seeing as she didn't take a breath before speaking again. "I am still attempting to determine why he has rejected treatment."

I sit there in stunned silence. If Kirito hadn't put her up to this, then this would mean that he would be right about something odd going on. That he wasn't crazy.

"Yui, can you prove to me what you say is true?" I plead. "This is hard to take in."

Yui frowns. "I wasn't supposed to make your symptoms worse, but I have. I will attempt to remedy this." She hops off the bed and grabs on of my spare rapiers. She holds it by the blade, causing me to wince and glance at her health bar, but she didn't seem to have one. She also didn't have a marker, or any of those other things you expect to see around another person.

She points the sword towards her own chest-

I leap up to stop the blade from going any further, but it looks like there wasn't any need. Before the blade could touch her, a purple hexagon appeared out of nowhere. The blade bounced and shot off like a rocket. I barely have time to read the words "Immortal object" before the purple hexagon disappears.

I sit down on my bed in shock. Kirito… Kirito was right. This was a manufactured world, and this girl, this program, was part of it. I had seen the purple octagon before. Whenever you hit something that couldn't be destroyed, like the walls of a cell, one would block the attack. Needless to say, nobody ever had that happen to them before.

"I… Is there any way I can contact Kirito?" I murmur to nobody in particular. "He's ignored all my messages, because they've been so harsh, I guess."

Yui blinks. "Kirito hasn't read any messages with the exception of one within the past month. All emails are deleted less than 0.015 seconds after message is sent. I can conclude that he has filters running on his inbox that auto deletes items from certain people, or blocks messages with certain words in them. Since most messages came from random sources rather than previous friends, I can conclude that the likelihood is great that he is sorts by content rather than sender."

"So… If I send him a nice message, He will receive it?"

"With 87% probability." Yui answers confidently.

I quickly pull up the message window and type out something to Kirito. I make sure not to do any pleading, begging, or cursing that had been the contents of my messages before. Then I click the send button.

Yui blinks. "Message received. No deletion command received."

I smile weakly. "Good, so you were right. I need to apologize to him when I see him ag-"

"Message deleted."

I start. "Huh? But I thought you said that it got through!"

Lag time between receiving and deletion was 5.782 seconds. Auto deletion takes only .2% of the time that this deletion occurred at. The conclusion is that he manually deleted it after viewing the address."

I sink to the ground. "Kirito…"

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

Floor 35, boss room. I stand in front of two big iron doors that lead to the next boss. Thirty seconds ago I had received a message from Asuna. 25 seconds ago, I had deleted it. The seconds on the interim had been full of regret. I had acted on impulse, and now I can't read the message no matter what.

The message had gotten through, which means it had avoided all my filters. I have no idea what would change her mind from those first few messages… those were all pretty unnerving. I sit on a pillar with a flared bottom at just the right height for sitting.

Now, no matter what I said, I wouldn't be able to make it up to her.

I stand up and take a deep breath. "Okay. I can do this. Just kill the boss, and dodge a raging Asuna when she appears at the teleporter." I steel myself and turn around.

I had already cut my ties, hadn't I? Why was this final act of alienation so difficult to swallow?

I throw my thoughts away and touch the door. I had a boss to clear, and a game to beat. A game that nobody knows exists besides me and an old man in the mountains.


	10. Chapter 10: The Fall

(Asuna's Perspective)

In the past two weeks, everything has been chaos. With my leader Heathcliff absent and unable to be found, there was already some nervous tension. When a girl that could apparently read thoughts appeared, panic fully set it.

At least, until the Army squashed it a few minutes later. Now, it's a criminal offense to walk around outside after dark. I heard Thinker was deposed from his spot as leader of the Army as well. In other words, everything went to hell in about two weeks after Yui appeared in my life.

Yui is a very quick learner. She picked up on exactly what was bothering the others about her routine and stopped teleporting around within the city to ask individuals if they wanted psychological help. Instead she stayed with me and happily answered questions that I had about the cardinal system.

The chain of questions whose answers had really caught me off guard started with a simple one: "What's outside the system?"

"Everything." Came the distinctly unhelpful reply.

"What's everything?"

Yui thinks for a second. At the time, I had only known Yui for two days, but I still already knew that when she didn't immediately have an answer, you were in for a whopper of an explanation.

Only, this time it wasn't. "Outside."

I heave an exasperated sigh. "Yui, I haven't been outside this system. I don't understand what you are talking about."

Yui blinks, which as far as I could tell was completely unnecessary for her. "Outside is large. Even floor one is only a fraction of the planet you used to live on."

Then I asked what planets are. Then I learned that stars are big balls of fire (Kind of: Yui's explanation of two things merging into one to create fire seemed a little off to me.) and that we all lived on a planet called earth before we started our voyage.

When I asked what voyage, Yui brought out a map. First it showed tiny me. "This is a scale model between you and Aincrad." Yui swipes with her hand and a giant sphere fills my vision. The floating castle Aincrad shrinks to almost invisibility beside the sphere. "This is your home planet of Earth. As you can see, Aincrad is only a tiny portion of the original planet's size. "

The map zooms out further until I can barely see the dot that used to be Earth. "Here is the Sol system. The large body in the center is Sol, the star around which all these planets orbit."

The maps zooms out even more until Sol is a just a speck. I was busy trying to figure out how tiny that made me when Yui pointed to another orb far away from Sol. "This is the star that we are currently orbiting, in the Alpha Centauri system."

"Why are we so far away from earth?"

"Insufficient information." Yui says calmly. "Although, according to onboard ship data, we arrived at the destination 38.7 years ago, at which time the Cardinal server should have shut down."

I clutch my head in my hands. "So, not only we trapped in a fake world, but I'm nowhere near where I'm supposed to be?"

"I am sure that this is your intended destination." Yui tilts her head. "Do you wish to spend another 70 years to make the return journey?"

"S-Seventy years?" I let go of my head and look straight up. The roof of my house is all I can see, but my mind allows me to look out into the skies beyond into a world I had never seen.

Silence descends upon us. Yui freezes into a statue, completely unmoving, and I flop onto my bed to figure things out.

Now, a week and half since these revelations had occurred, I was finally ready to do something about it. I had called together three people. Of course four came, but Kuradeel wasn't necessarily invited.

Klein, Lizbeth, Kuradeel and Silica sit around my kitchen table, chatting idly. I was attempting to figure out how to get Yui to change into cloths other than my best armor. She had decided that since it had the best numbers that meant it was the best for all occasions. I gave up after my third try attempting to tell her that the armor was only suited for combat and was a bit uncomfortable out of it. In any case, she didn't seem to be have the same issue I had with them.

I walk into the dining area with Yui in tow. Of the four, only Klein reacts. "Hey, it's that girl. Hello!"

Yui waves back. "Hello, Klein."

Klein grins. "Aw, he knows my name!"

I roll my eyes. "She knows everyone's names, Klein."

"Lizbeth, Silica, Kuradeel, Klein." Yui points from left to right. Then, as if as an afterthought, "It is a pleasure to meet you."

Well, at least she's trying. She told me she wasn't able to help anyone for 100 years, so she never developed any social skills. I had spent the last week or so attempting to get her to greet people politely.

Silica hops off her chair and runs up to Yui. "Hi! You know my name, but I don't know yours. What is it?"

"I am Yui-MH- I am Yui."

I had also told her that numbers in her name wouldn't help anyone get acquainted with her. I can almost guarantee that the only one thrilled to hear her full name would be Kirito himself.

"No, it's okay Yui. You can tell these people your full name." I say.

Klein arches an eyebrow. "Are you her parent or something?"

I hesitate, but Yui grabs my arm. "Asuna in my mama." She says with certainty. "I am Yui-MHCP001. It stands for Mental Health Counseling Program. My primary purpose is to seek out players with damaged emotional states and attempt to aid them."

Silica looks very confused. "Asuna, were you teaching her large words to confuse us?"

I shake my head. "Yui did this to me too. She's a lot more than just a little girl."

Klein sits back in my chair, and I wince as his weight and the angle starts decreasing the durability of the chair at a visible rate. "Okay, so she's special. In what way?"

Yui pulls my sword out of her inventory (I need to lock my stuff up, for all the good that will do) and attempts to kill herself just like she had when I had met her. Only, this time the quality of the sword was much better and the blowback was enough to send the weapon at my head. I caught it before it could do any harm to my house and quickly tucked it away into my inventory.

Everyone else was looking at the purple hexagon that had appeared next to her. Silica was amazed, as was Klein and Kuradeel, but Lizbeth was confused. "Yeah, but nobody can hurt themselves inside a city, right?"

Kuradeel shakes his head. "There's an allowance that allows people to commit suicide."

Klein nods slowly. "I did hear that once. It was just a rumor though."

Kuradeel shakes his head. "It's not a rumor, trust me."

I break the awkward silence that follows. "S-so, Yui has some interesting things to tell you."

Yui gives them a short version of the information I had been given, and I watch their faces drift between disbelief and reluctant agreement. After Yui finished her read of the facts, Silica grabs Yui.

"You're very smart for only being 8 years old." She says with a smile on her face.

"I am 106, as old as this server." Yui responds.

Silica snorts. "No you aren't. You only look like you're eight or nine."

Yui looks at me for some reason. I just shrug.

Klein straightens up in his chair. "So, this stupid thing was correct." Klein tosses the player guidebook onto the table. Everyone here had had a chance to read it since Kirito left, and copies had been distributed to the Clearer guilds so they would know how Kirito thought.

I nod. "Looks that way."

Yui blinks. "The edits made into that book are only 90% correct. There are quite a few assumptions made as well. While 45% of all assumptions within the book have been proven correct within the last 106 years of operation, there is no guarantee that they will continue to do so, especially as a lot of the speculation is unprovable within the system."

Kuradeel is visibly sweating. "So far, she's only blinked once!"

Yui turns her gaze to him. "Suffers from inferiority co-"

"Yes, yes. Well, Asuna, why did you call all of us here?" Kuradeel interrupts Yui.

I glare at him for a few seconds, but then open my gaze to encompass all of them… Uhg, my speech has become more complicated since meeting Yui. "I wanted to discuss Kirito."

Klein grumbles. "Why can't we just leave the guy alone? It's not like he's harmed anyone since floor 20, and that was 25 floors ago!"

"Twenty eight." I correct. "He's clearing floor 48 now."

Klein rolls his eyes. "My point still stands. Why do we even care anymore? Let's just stop going after him and change our classes to merchants or whatever."

Lizbeth coughs loudly into her hand. Klein rolls his eyes.

"We can't leave him alone." I say. Four faces turn to mine. "If we do, Yui says that he's going to turn into something worse than he already is."

"Didn't we just establish that he's not insane?" Lizbeth says. "Then there isn't anything to worry about."

Yui shakes her head. "Kirito's stress levels are at a point that identifies as critical in my systems. Without the proper attention, it is likely for him to have a psychotic breakdown within the next few months."

That brought about a large silence. Psychotic breakdown wasn't something you heard every day, but it had happened once before that I can remember. Silica raises her hand after a while.

"W-what can we do to help him?" She asks in a quaking voice.

Yui turns her dead gave to the youngest of the group. "I would recommend relieving some of his stress, however, that option is not easy to accomplish. He appears to have taken this entire server on as his responsibility. The only way to help him would thus be to help him get out."

Surprisingly, it was Kuradeel who steps up. "Then let's go help him!" Once he notices the looks we are all giving him, he puts on a defensive voice. "Hey, even I want to get out of here! I don't want to be trapped in a box high in the sky!"

Come to think of it, neither did I. I just never thought about that way. I slam my fist down on the table, and inwardly groan as I take a sizable chunk of the durability out of the table. "Okay! We are going to form a Clearing group, just the five of us, and when Kirito clears the next level we will follow him and help him if he needs help!"

Klein hardly reacts but to grin. "Shouldn't you be asking our opinions? You're talking to the leader of the dragon Armies, the leader of Fuurinkazan, Kirito's lover and one of your subordinates."

I think my face went red, but I have no idea what for, either rage or embarrassment. Lizbeth's face went through confusion, comprehension and definite rage. Klein's face went red from the blood running down from his nose. A violence waning pops up between the two, but despite Lizbeth's best attack, Klein hardly looked like he was hurt.

I lean down into his face. "Do you agree? To join my force?"

He nods and pinches his nose shut. "Whudebber you say."

I grin. "Good. Now, all of you need to get prepared to go through the gates. I'll command the KoB to stand down on this one. Klein, you should do the same. Silica, make sure Pina gets her rest."

Silica nods. "Okay! I'll make sure that the rest of the dragons are ready as well!"

I smile a bit as we all say our goodbyes. This might actually wo-

"It's not going to work."

I look down to see Yui looking straight ahead. "It's already too late."

"Why? What has he done?"

"Nothing." Yui turns and looks at a particular spot on the ceiling. "Papa already has him."

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

Floor 49. No more blades with more than a few hits left on them. I had already run from two giant mobs that I could easily beat if I had swords that wouldn't shatter after only two hits.

On top of that, I had a madman after me.

Heathcliff hadn't been at the teleporter for any of the previous twenty or so floors, but when I had unlocked 48, he had been waiting and had been chasing me since. I have a very high sneak skill, but last I checked, he was still on the top of the scoreboard. It made it kind of confusing to be honest. If he was high enough level that my current level 60 couldn't touch him, and believe me I couldn't, then he should have very easily swept out the previous floors.

This begs the question of what the hell he was doing on the lower floors that was so important that he couldn't clear like his guild was supposed to be doing. I silently curse him for not doing his own fair share.

Currently, I was hiding up on a ledge, lying flat as I could make my bony form. I can hear the armor of the leader of the KoB clanking as he searches for me.

"Kirito." He calls. "Come face the consequences of your actions."

I cautiously peek from my position. Heathcliff has his back to me. I stand up silently and grab some thick roots hanging from the ceiling. Heathcliff turns around as I knock off some dust, but I was quick enough to be able to hide among the roots. He passes beneath me, and I have to resist the urge to descend and engage him. The last time I had struck his armor, my sword had shattered after only one hit.

That meant that while I was great at attacking, he was even better at defending. This wasn't going to be a fight I could win. Too bad for me that Heathcliff didn't seem to want to give me a choice.

The clanking diminishes as he walks away from my hiding spot. I silently drop to the floor and head in the direction he had gone, as that was the way deeper into the dungeon. A small part of mind finds he whole situation hilarious. Here I was, attempting to take down a whole castle all by myself, and help comes in the form of a manhunt. A one man manhunt, but still.

Heathcliff's steps in front of me cease. I quickly stop and observe my surrounds, looking for a spot to hide.

"Kirito, You have no idea what you have just done, do you?" Heathcliff says. I flatten myself against doorframe that he had just disappeared through, and watch as he walks back into the same room I am in.

I get a nice view of his back, and if he turns around, I am completely screwed. I count to 5 and dash around the doorframe, hiding on the other side.

Heathcliff comes back through the door a second later and continues to walk. I follow after him, watching his movements and attempting to predict him movements. Interestingly, those predictions and the actuality quickly boiled down to "Walk straight to the dungeon."

I realized something was odd about halfway to the boss door. Heathcliff was avoiding side passages and making the best time through the dungeon that was possible at his walking pace. He literally made exactly zero detours, as if he had a map, but he shouldn't have one since no one has ever made it to this level before. His behavior stopped being the stop and start variety.

It was only thirty feet from the boss door I figured it out. He had been leading me here. Heathcliff stands next to the boss doors and crosses his arms. "Kirito, if you want to get to this boss, I suggest you come out from behind that rock."

I carefully stand up from behind said rock. "So? Are you going to kill me now?"

"No. This boss will take care of that for me." He closes his eyes. "I came here to ask you what you think you will accomplish by winning this game."

"I will let everyone out of their imprisonment within this system and let them live real lives on the outside world."

Heathcliff laughs. "What outside world? Outside is just an empty expanse, and there is nothing there for us."

"So you do know about the outside world. You also know this dungeon to a degree that doesn't fit with our established history."

Heathcliff laughs again, more menacingly. "Do you want to know why? I know every inch of this world. I spent my life creating it. I am its god."

"No, according to the player's handbook, it's Kayaba Akihiko who created this world."

Heathcliff opens his menu and flips through a few things, then shimmers a bit. His broad shoulders sink back, His hair turns from white to black, and he gets shorter. His armor is replaced by a lab coat and glasses. "I am one and the same, Kirito, or should I say, Kazuto Kirigaya. I was the designer of the Cardinal system and the one who modified the system to keep players locked inside."

I resist from drawing my sword. Provoking him wouldn't help me much. "So you just decided that people should live their lives inside a system without knowing there was an outside world. I find that despicable."

Kayaba shrugs. "They were going to live and die inside the system anyway. Outside of the system is little more than a metal tube less than a mile long that is floating in an empty void. Why would you doom twelve thousand people to the fate of eternal boredom?"

"Everyone should have the right to choose what life they want. Lying to them, hiding the truth no matter how grim, is the problem here." I say with a certainty I didn't feel. His words had indeed rattled me, but I'll be damned before he gets me to admit that. "I'm doing this to free everyone and let them choose which world is better."

"That won't be possible." Kayaba crosses his arms in exactly the same way he did when he was Heathcliff. "I made this system. I designed to be beaten once, and then have it self-destruct. Once you 'free' yourself and everyone else, there will be no going back."

"Then I'll make a new world. One that can be left at will."

"No, you won't." He uncrosses his arms and gestures to the door. "This boss is unbeatable, at least for you. I assure you that anyone besides for you would be able to beat this boss. I spent the last two weeks redesigning it." He smirks. "This is the end for solo player Kirito."

"I wouldn't bet on it." I snarl back "I've taken down everything up to this point except for you, and that means that you think any two other players could take you down. I'll take my chances with the boss."

Kayaba shrugs. "If you decide to quit now, I won't chase you anymore. Leave only the first 48 levels cleared. Everything else can remain a mystery. You can go back and see all your friends, Asuna, Lizbeth, and Klein. You can see your parents."

I pause with both hands on the door. I couldn't lie. That offer was very tempting. But… Asuna already probably hates me, and Lizbeth and Klein were also likely to share Asuna's outlook. My parents? I had no idea. I would like to think that they would welcome me back, but I had murdered people. For that matter, the entirety of the Aincrad server currently saw me as a villain. Returning to life as a hunted man wasn't that appealing.

"I think not. I think it's better to live free than chained by ignorance."

I push open the doors and step inside. They close slowly behind me, and once they seal, something stirs in the dark. I draw my sword-

The sword is yanked out of my grasp, and all my other weapons spontaneously appear out of my inventory and fly up to the ceiling of the massive arena. I double check my inventory find exactly zero weapons left for me to fight with. I purple haze appears over the weapons, and two beams of the same color descend on either side of the room. I trace the beams and find that they each lead to a little pedestal with a button. The purple glow also lights up the creature in the center of the room. It's a skeleton, one dyed purple. I had fought a lot of these on the way here, but this one also had a crown.

Above its head appears a four layer health bar. All of these skeletons have tons of resistance too, so that meant this fight would take a while even with my sword. Deprived of any weapons, this promises to be a long battle.

I glance over at the pedestal on the left. Maybe, if I press both buttons, I could let my weapons free.

I run to the pedestal and press the button. The purple field starts to shimmer and vibrate. I let go and run to the other side of the room… and the button depresses and the field goes back to normal before I can get even halfway. It didn't help that the skeleton was just waiting in between the two buttons. Since there didn't seem to be any threat, I stood still and calculated my approximate maximum speed, the distance between the two buttons, and the time it takes for the button to depress. Suddenly, I'm missing my dragon. I don't know where he went, but he was on my shoulder when I was talking to Kayaba. I couldn't sense him either, so I could only assume that Kayaba had disabled him somehow.

I finally realize what Kayaba had meant by anyone else could do this but me. I was unable to press both buttons at once, but any other players that were even marginally sane would form a party to come to this boss room. Two players could easily free the equipment, it would just be a matter of quickly sorting it while dodging the skeleton's attacks. Quite an interesting battle. I was I had a chance to see a group take it on.

I have nothing but my fists, so I guess they will have to do. I charge the purple bones creature and slam my right fist into its face. My health drops about two percent just from wrist damage. Its top bar now has about one pixel of red in it. I back off, but this time it follows me. I quickly scan through my menus and find that I had only three health potions. That wasn't going to be enough.

My natural regeneration kicks in after a few seconds outside of combat and puts me back at 99% health before the skeleton king gets close enough to trigger combat again.

This is going to be a long battle.

* * *

(Asuna's Perspective)

When leader came back to us, he looked a lot worse than when he left. While his armor still gleamed and his face was still unmarred, his expression was one of disappointment.

"Asuna, thank you for coming on such short notice."

I nod. I had spent all last night attempting to come up a convincing document to present to him that would help convince him that Kirito was correct, but once I saw his mood, I decide it might be best to wait for another time.

"I'm not ready to announce it to the public, but Kirito is dead. I killed him yesterday."

I gasp in shock. What? But he was doing so well! "I-I…"

"I know it's a shock, but I had no choice. He was full on murderous when I tried to stop him. He managed to get me farther down in health than anyone ever has before, but his sword broke and I swung too hard… I know you liked him. I'm sorry."

I almost drop the hidden report on the floor. It is all but worthless now. "Y-yes. Of course."

He puts his head in his hands. "He was such a skilled boy. I wish things had turned out differently."

I don't respond, mainly because my eyes are tearing up. Of the time I had known him, most of it he had been condescending and aloof, but he seemed like he cared about those around him. I don't know why, but I fell for him while he was training me. And now, I would never get to tell him.

"Floor 49, Katamaran village is now open."

Heathcliff and I stare at each other. In that instant, all trust between us was shattered. He and I both knew it.

He pulls out a teleport crystal and yells the words to activate it. I scramble around in my bag and do the same, but I am several seconds behind. My vision whites out, and when I can see again I'm already surrounded by our new temporary guild. We all have our weapons out and are looking around.

The teleporter for this world is located atop a pillar of some sort, and when we all look down, an astonishing sight greets us. Kirito and Heathcliff are fighting with swords.

Klein almost jumps, but I grab his shirt at the last second. "Don't. Leader has been hiding something from us."

"What makes you say that?" Lizbeth asks. "He's always been trustworthy before."

"He just told me a few seconds ago that Kirito was dead by his hand. Obviously that isn't the case."

The rest of the group falls into silence. Above the clashing of swords, two voices can be heard.

"How?!" Howls Heathcliff. "How did you did you possibly manage to beat him without weapons?"

"I used my fists!" Growls Kirito, two swords in his hands, neither of which I recognized. He starts up a sword skill and the swampy ground reflects enough of the bright blue light that we need to narrow eyes up here on top of the tower.

"But it has a resistance of-"

"My fists were just a bit stronger." Kirito's sword skill ends and he freezes in place for a second before flipping backwards and dodging a sword skill in return from Heathcliff.

"This time, brat, you won't get away with destroying this server. I will take you apart."

"Of course you will. But not until after I'm done freeing this world from you grasp."

Heathcliff's sword skill ends and Kirito moves in and dodges a shield slam, raking his sword straight up the centerline of Heathcliff's form. All of us on top of the tower look to his health bar… which doesn't fall. It's not a city zone yet, it never was for the first few minutes, or else those players on floor twenty would've survived the firestorm.

"It's not your decision to make!" Growls Heathcliff. "It's my world, and my decision!"

"Keeping people trapped in a box is not acceptable!"

"Neither is destroying their world and trapping them in a smaller box! Here, people are free to do what they want. There, they would all need to sit in little jars, and wait, doing nothing while they all grow old and die!"

Kirito visibly falters. All of us on the pillar hold our breaths as we wait for the next instant to come.

"That may be, but I still have to know! I need to find out just how much of this is a lie!"

Kirito locks swords with Heathcliff and they growl at each other.

"You will not destroy my perfect world. This is _my_ world, _my_ life's dream. I will not have it taken down because one boy was too curious!"

Kirito leaps backwards, their swords untangling and Heathcliff rocking off balance. Kirito swings his sword down and it lodges in a chink in Leader's armor. I watch in astonishment as leader's health still doesn't budge. Getting a sword in like that was usually a game ender for even strong players. For his health not to even budge…

Heathcliff can't be normal.

"Cheating, huh?" Klein whispers. He has obviously seen the same thing.

I nod. "Did you hear what he said? The only thing outside is a void. That must be the space Yui was talking about. I thought we were at a planet though?"

Klein squints his eyes. "I'm more inclined to trust Yui, in any case. She's not a human."

"She could be lying about that." Mutters Lizbeth.

"Okay, you preform the mental calculations we had her do." Klein snaps back.

Below us, Kirito is slowly being pushed back into a corner formed by two massive boats that somehow floated in the shallow water that was only up to Kirito's knees. He keeps glancing back at the corner.

"He needs help." Says Silica. "If we don't help him, he's going to die."

She walks up to the edge and this time Kuradeel is the one to haul her back. "Are you crazy? He can't be defeated! Kirito is as good as dead unless he escapes, and if we go down there, we all die as well. Heathcliff won't stand for us knowing what we know."

I hated to admit it, but he has a point. I point back towards the portal. "I want you four to go back through the teleporter. If he sees you, then it will all be over. He already knows that I think something is up, so if he sees me it's not going to change much. Either way, I need to go into hiding."

Reluctantly, the other four turn back and quietly activate the portal. I look back over the side and watch.

Kirito is now backed into the corner. The sword he is swinging around in his left hand shatters and Heathcliff rams him with his shield, pinning him to the wall.

"Kirito. If only you had listened, it wouldn't have ended this way." Heathcliff raises his sword.

Kirito pulls the sword in his right hand back and stabs it into Heathcliff's face. Heathcliff yells, but doesn't falter. The sword comes down… and the sound of shattering becomes the only thing I hear. I barely remember walking back to the portal and transporting myself down to the first floor, then checking the stone monolith. Kirito's name, real name and nickname, are gone from the board.

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

I wasn't expecting to open my eyes ever again. I don't think anyone would after seeing a sword come down on their head with no mercy. I instantly recognized where I was as well. I'm in my little blue tank. I was almost one hundred percent sure I should be dead right now.

I had accepted death in the darkness before my eyes had opened. I had been given time to look back at what I did. I'm not sure if that was part of the Cardinal system, but there was a whole lot of floor clearing and not much else. In the darkness before the blue light, I wondered at my actions. I kept hearing Yui's voice, and Asuna's and Heathcliff's, all telling me what I was doing wrong.

Maybe nobody wanted to be freed. Maybe this world needed to be shocked away from its current existence. I realized that I just didn't know anymore. Then I remembered my actions, my words. Yui's diagnosis comes back to me.

"You'd kill to get your own way."

I had already done that, back on floor twenty. I had rationalized that. I had killed that Laughing Coffin member, and I had rationalized that. I wonder if I had killed more people, if my excuse would have been "for the greater good." That was always the excuse villains offered.

Maybe I should try a different approach.

That's about as far as I got before I woke up.

Outside the tank, a man is waiting. "Kazuto. I have something to tell you. I was watching the match from out here, and unfortunately you are now on the radar for Kayaba. I can't risk my own position on this side, so I can only count on you. I've been constructing a backup account on this server for a while now. The character is 15 years old, and has no skills assigned." The man bows his head. "I can't say too much more out here, but the character has a book on it. You need to read that. For now, I need to hook you up before anyone notices." He puts his hand on the glass. "I trust you to get them out. This time, work with your friends. Don't tell them who you are, and don't tell them about me. I'll give you help when I can."

I do my best to nod within the strange fluid.

Outside the tank, I see his hands moving swiftly across a panel, and I fall down into darkness.

When I wake, I find myself on the first floor of Aincrad, and a hell of a lot weaker. Until you go from level 80 to level 2 in less than fifteen minutes, you don't know what weak feels like. I silently wonder if I could even pick up any of my swords.

The bench I was on seemed like as god a spot as any to sit on while I figured out my new identity.

Oh, right. Those are all gone. I open my inventory and find absolutely nothing aside from the book the man on the outside said I would find. I open it and start to read.

A few hours later, I close the book and carefully recite the name I had been given. It wasn't great…

A flash of light appears in front of me. My heart jumps up into my throat. Did Kayaba catch on already?

But no, it's Yui. The program. This might end up a problem.

"Hello, Kirito."

Well then. "Hello Yui."

"I take it that you have been put back into the system rather than dying."

I nod. "Don't tell anyone, okay? I'm not supposed to be here." I pause a second, then add, "How did you know who I was?"

"Your psychological profile is identical with Kirito's just before he was executed, to within a thousandth of a percent. With all the anomalies surrounding you and your skills, it was not a far leap to make that you could possibly be reentered into the system. Then, it was just waiting for a character that was inactive for some time to be activated."

I smile. "That's pretty amazing, but why a character that was inactive?"

"If you were reentered as a new member, due to software changes you would still be a child and need to grow up before you could do anything. As that was not a viable, I added a parameter to search for inactive accounts first."

"That's amazing. Now, I did say not to tell anyone right?"

"I will not unless instructed by someone with higher authority." Yui states.

I shrug. "Good enough. I need to go to floor five and start leveling up… again."

Yui blinks and three items, a chest plate and two swords appear before me. "Gee, thanks." I say good naturedly. "That saves me the effort of getting them myself." I glance at my Col amount. Before, it had been enough to buy half of the first floor, but now it was just a few hundred Col. Shame. "Say, Yui, I'm sorry I acted the way I did up there."

Yui shakes her head. "In my time with Asuna I realized I had made many mistakes as well."

I arch an eyebrow. "You meet with Asuna?"

"She's my mama."

Eh. I'm going to assume that isn't literally, or else Asuna is a lot older than she looks.

"Okay then." I stand up. "Time to go farm- WAHG"

I flop over onto the ground. Wow, this body feels a lot different from my own. I'm going to have a hard time adjusting to it.

Yui gives me a hand up. "I will guide you to the portal, then to the fighting grounds, and then to Asuna's hiding place. There, I will introduce you to them all."

"Sounds like plan."

I look down at my body. "I hope I can get used to this quickly. It's going to be annoying to be known as clumsy."

Yui turns around. "It will not be a problem. You mind should adjust within a few days."

I smirk. A few days might as well be an eternity to me. Oh well, time to get down to business.


	11. Chapter 11: Reborn

Someone didn't want me to write this chapter. I wrote the two different chapters, discarded both, went with a third idea, my computer ate it, and then I lost the drive to write for a while. This was attempt 4.

A big thanks to the guy that proofreads these!

Enjoy the story!

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

From the bench to the teleporter, which wasn't more than two hundred feet, I managed to trip several times. The main reason I was tripping over myself was that this new body is severely off balance in the postures I had grown up using.

Quite frankly, I had been put in an almost female body. I have seen some people that had bodies that made them look like they were the opposite gender, but this one takes the cake. Hell, when I saw my reflection in the water _I_ thought I looked like a girl.

Of course, the first thing I did was open my menu. There, it still said I was male, so I would have to trust it. Still, if I had been a girl… I didn't really have the assets.

That didn't stop people from turning their heads and staring as I stumbled down the path. I was so much lighter in this form that it was hard keep my balance, and on top of that my now momentously long hair was getting in the way. I resolved to get rid of it as soon as I got to an area with a hair stylist.

Yui walks silently beside me, watching as I slowly stop stumbling every other step. Once I reach the teleporter though, she holds up her hand. "Incoming message."

I turn to her. "Huh? I don't have a mess- oh, there it is."

I press my finger to the icon and open the message. Inside is the same weird message color I had received from Kayaba way back when I was still switching between this world and the outside one.

Wait, Kayaba? That would be bad. I scan the message, but the only indication of who this could be is an "x" in the from box. I had no choice but to read the letter.

"Kirito, I can't watch over you all of the time, so please make wise decisions. Kayaba has confided in some of his higher ups that he suspects someone is helping the players within the system. That is indeed what I am doing, helping you clear this game. I cannot directly affect your stats either. The only help I can provide, at least while everyone is in high alert, is advice. My advice is this: Do not do what Kirito would do. That means no grinding on high level floors. I expect you can get away with still using one handed swords, but I beseech you not attempt to dual wield. Every new flag you raise against your new identity makes it harder to clear the game in the long run."

I stare at the message, and Yui glances over my shoulder. I doubt she needed to do that, even if my privacy settings were set to allow people to look over my shoulder. I glance down at her. "Apparently, I'm not supposed to do anything that would make me too similar to Kirito. So, that means no grinding. What other ways are there to quickly level up?"

Yui pauses. "No feasible methods. There are several that would get you up to level twenty in the next twelve months. The most viable course of action to level while still avoiding papa's gaze would be to join a party and go on a low level raid." She tilts her head, giving the impression she is thinking.

I make a face. "I don't like raids. Other people would just slow me down."

"Right now," Yui steps in front of me. "You are not powerful enough to be of any help to Asuna, Klein, Lizbeth, Kuradeel or Silica. To twist your own words back on yourself, you would be the one slowing everyone else down."

I pause and think. "That… Damn it. Now I'm powerless." I feel like hitting something, but there isn't much to hit this close to the teleporter.

Yui approaches me, pauses, then wraps her thin arms around me. I stand there in shock for a second. "Uh… Yui?"

"I have determined that you need cheering up. After two weeks experimentation, I have determined that this gesture is effective with 80% of test subjects." She says in her typical monotone. "It is the most effective of my preprogrammed techniques."

I scruff up her hair, which settles back perfectly into position. "Thanks, Yui." I straighten up and look around. "Now, how do I join a clearing group?" Yui gives me a look from her position at my side. "Okay, okay. How do I join a raid?"

"There is an established grouping area on floor 7. There are several wide clearings used for finding new parties." Yui stops. "I have concluded that it would be bad for me to accompany you any further."

"Hey! You said you were going to take me up to see Asuna and the others."

Yui responds without delay. "Since I am not a player myself, it is suspicious for me to be around any one particular player."

I grumble under my breath. "Fine. You said level 7? That's Freeman's Ruins, correct?"

Yui nods. "I will be taking my leave now."

I wave as she disappeared into dust. Then I step into the teleporter and head to Freeman's Ruins.

* * *

(Asuna's Perspective)

I don't know how long I had been lying in my bed when Yui teleported in. I barely registered her arrival as it was, and even then I just kind of half raised my hand in greeting. The fact she had appeared without any warning at all didn't even cause me to jump this time, which was a bit unusual.

"Asuna?" Yui inquires politely. Something we were still working on. "Are you okay?"

"D-Do I look okay?" I mutter. "I don't think I look okay."

Yui sits down beside me. "It is normal to grieve the loss of a close friend." She says calmly. "It wasn't your fault that he died. You attempted to make contact, and you did everything within your power once you realized what was going on. It isn't your fault."

"But… I could've gone down there and at least tried!" I turn my head to the side so she wouldn't see my tears stain the pillow.

I'm sure she noticed anyway, seeing as she could tell where people were between floors and evaluate their mental states from that great distance.

"If you did, you would likely be with him." Yui says after a moment. "Would you rather abandon your friends to save one person, or save all of them as was his stated objective?"

Despite myself, I noticed that Yui seemed a lot more insightful than normal. She normally needed the "why" explained to her, but she was getting it at least for the moment. Must be because she's doing her job for once, not stuck on a higher floor unable to help. "I-You're right. I j-just wish he wasn't dead."

"Of course. Nobody with a sound mind wants their friends dead. If you did, I would be compelled to fix that as well." Yui tilts her head. "You do not wish any of your friends dead, do you?"

I let out a weak laugh. "No, I don't."

The two of us sit in silence for a few minutes.

"Sometimes talking helps. Do you want to share anything? I can immediately delete it from my memories if you wish."

"Th- thanks."

More silence.

"I didn't really know Kirito, if you think about it." I say. Yui refrains from commenting, so I continue. "I met him on a lower floor and he saved me from an orange player. I think I was amazed at how easily it seemed he handled the situation, to be honest. Well, I felt bad that I caused him so much trouble, and maybe I was a bit star struck, but I ended up training with him while he served out his punishment on the walls of floor 12. I- He immediately went and turned himself red protecting me again. I don't know why I was following him after that, whether I felt indebted, or… or something, but I followed him until he left us to go clear ahead.

"I don't understand why, but it made me angry. He just up and left, and he… He seemed different than when he rescued me. It's like he had experience that he shouldn't."

Yui speaks up. "He did have abnormal XP due to his long grinding hours."

"Yeah, but that's not what I meant. He seemed older than he should have been. Jaded, I guess."

"He did end up in a kill or be killed situation less than a month after his update. That is not usual even during the very first days of the Cardinal server." Yui says. "Though I do have to agree that his emotional state was drifting into an extremely poor area before his death."

I give another short laugh. "He seemed borderline insane last time I talked to him, shouting at him on top of a rooftop. I almost cried there, at least on the inside. Then I learned he was telling the truth, or I'm caught up in one really elaborate lie."

Yui flops down beside me, and I turn my head to find her thick black hair. "I doubt he would blame you."

"He always takes the blame for everything." I agree. "Thanks Yui. I feel a lot better now. I'm going to get some rest."

Yui nods. "Do you want me to erase that conversation?"

"No, that's alright."

I yawn and close me sore eyes. Maybe everything would look brighter in the morning.

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

I had never joined a guild before. It wasn't like I really had time, seeing as for my entire updated life except for less than a day's worth of hours I have been a criminal of varying degrees. I did once want to join a Clearing guild, but since then I learned that what I used to think a Clearing guild was essentially a second wall guard that sometimes went out into the fields in large groups to level up.

I think that is the main reason I wasn't fitting in with these… players.

I had joined up with a group called the Moonlit Black Cats, a small guild that is full of energy. They had all grown up together on floor four, and decided that they would make a guild all their own and clear floors with the best of them. I had to refrain from smirking. My new persona doesn't smirk.

The leader is nice, and genuinely cares for the safety of his guild members. I was included in this, despite me being a new addition. When I revealed that I had no combat experience (From now on, I refer to my new body as I and to old body as Kirito, no use in considering someone I'm not anymore) and that I had only the basic armor, he decided to spent guild funds to get me some better gear despite my protests that I would earn it myself.

"If you're dead before you can earn yourself armor, there isn't much point. If you really feel that strongly about it, then you can pay me back once you have spare col." He said with a merry smile.

I was able to say that I was a front line player, one that knew his way with a training sword. I just never fought anything that was actually trying to kill me.

Seconds after informing them of my abilities, I tripped over myself again and crashed into a nearby player. I turned to apologize-

Oh, crap. Klein!

Klein's alive! I didn't kill him after all!

He barely looks at me as I stammer out an apology. Not for killing some of his guild mates, but for stumbling into him. He walks off without saying anything, a cloud of gloom hovering over him. Of course, that first one probably was the cause of his bad mood... A shiver goes down my spine.

I turn back to my new group and say, "Sorry, I'm also a bit clumsy."

I am met with five large grins. "You said you don't have a nickname yet, right?" Says Ducker, a kid in yellow clothes. He has a moderately evil look in his eye. "How about we call you Klutz?"

"Eh-"

"I like it." Says the leader, Keita. Sachi, Tetsuo, and Sasamaru all agree heartily. I sigh and bring up my menu, assigning the name "Klutz" to my nickname field. Now, I wouldn't be able to change the name for a while...

"Today, in honor of our new forward, we are heading to the 15th floor." Declares Keita. I start to raise an objection, but then think better of it. I had no place to criticize this guy's choices. They are all probably all perfectly capable of fighting on this level, since they had been doing this for a month. At least, I really hoped so.

"Don't worry, Klutz. We won't put you in too much danger. We've been doing this floor for three days now, so we know what we are capable of. We'll get a feel for your style and figure out the best position for you. I mean, you said you were a forward, but then so did Sachi when we started."

"Hey! It's not my fault that the monsters are scary! I'm not as brave as you four!" Sachi says in indignation.

I smirk. "I think I'll be fine as a forward. Just give me time to get used to combat and I'll be fine."

Keita nods. "Okay, let's get you some decent equipment and then let's get moving."

It took very little time to find me gear. I already knew what I liked, single one handed sword, but since I'm not allow to dual wield, I decided to opt for a two handed sword instead. The two are closely linked, and the sword skills are similar, just slower and more powerful. The sword I chose was barely good enough to do anything to the floor fifteen monsters, but I wasn't a damage dealer for this party. Really, I was more of a tank, despite my low health.

Yeah, my small health bar was also pretty disturbing. I wasn't used to it being so short. I could hear voices in my head sniggering at that comment, but I couldn't figure out why. I wonder if someone is monitoring my thoughts besides Yui. Very briefly, before dismissing that idea as patently ridiculous. There's over ten thousand people in Aincrad, no way was anyone monitoring all of them at once. That would be absurd. Wait, Yui does that, right? I wonder if there's a MHCP002-

Okay, tiny health bar. Don't get hit, or I'll die in one hit… Why am I a forward again? Oh yeah, they needed one.

Once I got equipped (and estimated that I could probably handle anything up to level 15 myself as long as I didn't trip over myself. Unfortunately, that means that on floor 15 I would be outclassed by anything other than a minion. Well, At least I had people to rely on…

Oh. That's why it was weird. I never relied on anyone in a fight before. Or, I did once for about half a second before the coward ran off. For some reason, I got the impression that I could trust these people with my life. They all seemed so friendly and actively sought to help me.

Once we reached the edge of the protective zone on floor fifteen, Keita made sure that I understood the plan, my role in the plan, an what to do if they get overwhelmed. I was handed a blue crystal and told to use it if I was about to die.

I felt bad that I knew what was going to happen in this dungeon, seeing as I had cleared it… a while ago. Instead, I just followed orders, listening to the interparty banter. I had to admit, it had been a lonely few months that I had been gone while working up to the 50th floor. Just hearing so much constant chatter was slightly distracting, but when we encountered our first mob, they stopped the lazy chatter and started to give me instructions.

They let me get the last hit on the mob, and I level up 4 levels in one hit. There was a disproportionate amount of applause and cheering… and for the first time, I felt like I belonged. It as a strange feeling. It wasn't the love I got at home, it wasn't the driving feeling that kept me going while I was all alone. It certainly wasn't the abrasive feeling I had between my other "guild" under Asuna.

I think I truly smiled for the first time in forever.

We fought through the rest of the day, and as I fought, I stopped stumbling. The movements I had learned over the past few months gradually adapted to my new form, and I was definitely holding my own by the end of the night, mostly due to the fact the party let me get all of the last hits.

We all went out and ate at a tavern on the 8th floor after the day was over. It wasn't something I was used to, to say the least. The five of them were busy reliving the moments they had just lived through, while I sat at my seat and watched them re-enact their sword skills and holler. I was worried that we might get kicked out a few times, to be honest.

"Yo, Klutz!" Ducker calls out. I look up from my plate to see his clean one soaring towards my face. I duck my head while simultaneously grabbing the plate and stopping it from hitting anyone behind me.

"What was that for?" I ask after setting it back down on the table, out of his reach.

"You aren't participating!" Ducker says with mock indignation. At least, I think it's mock indignation. Kind of hard to tell with him.

"I'd rather not make a spectacle of myself."

"Too bad!" Crows Tetsuo. "You aren't an official member of the Moonlit Black Cats until you have been publicly embarrassed!"

"No, that's not how it works-" Begins Sachi, but Ducker, Tetsuo and Sasamaru shoot her a look. I quickly realize that while they might be telling a lie, there isn't much I can do to stop them from whatever they had in mind.

At least, not without going orange again, I think I should avoid doing that as well. As per Mr. X's orders, pattern matching is bad.

Huh, that is one hell of a pattern too.

Sasamaru Grabs my left arm, Tetsuo my right, and I get marched right to the table in the center of the tavern and they dump me onto it. I turn around in place on top of the table and give them both what I hoped was a both frustrated and questioning look.

Ducker claps his hands together. "Okay, now dance."

"Not on your life." Comes my flat reply.

"Aw, come on! We went through all the trouble to reserve a table for you and everything!"

I stare at Ducker. "You reserved this table? You reserved a table for me to dance on? Why the fu-"

"If you don't dance, then you're going to have to pay for everyone's meals tonight." He says, crossing his arms over his chest.

I groan. "Fine. I will kill you three later." I wait a few seconds. "Do I at least get music?"

Ducker nods and pulls out _OH MY GOD I HATE MY LIFE. _He brings out a set of BAGPIPES. Those are obnoxious, and whoever made them needs to have their arms chopped off.

"Now, to the tune of 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow,' I bring you 'For He's a Jolly Good Cross dresser.'"

That's it. When I get to floor 100, I'm using these three as bait for the boss.

What follows… I'm going to say I don't remember, and I'm sticking with that. The wolf whistles though… Those are going to haunt my sleep for the rest of my life.

By the way, I slept that night. No nightmares, no waking up in a blue sea of jelly, no lying awake and tracing the cracks in the ceiling. I was so startled by my alarm actually being the thing that woke me up I almost stabbed the person in the bed next to me. Not that it would've done any damage, but battle reflexes suck outside the battlefield.

Despite my alarm going off at seven thirty, when I always woke up, I was all alone when I headed downstairs. I waited a few minutes, but it looked like everyone else was in their rooms, still sleeping.

I receive a message in my inbox from X. I open it to find a rather short message:

"Nice dancing."

I swear I'm going to clear this game, and then kill everyone who I know just because.

* * *

(Klein's perspective)

Asuna, Silica, Lizbeth and I wait for Kuradeel to arrive. Asuna had informed us that we were going to go into hiding. Because she was afraid of Heathcliff, and she was worried that he would come after the rest of us. Personally, I thought that the act of hiding made us into targets in the first place, but she had become a lot more forceful since meeting Kirito.

It's not like I hadn't seen her before Kirito saved her, I just never saw her up close. She was always in the back of the KoB meetings, acting as if she'd rather be in the barracks sweeping or something. I don't think she was ever on any of the joint parties we sent out back when progress on level 12 meant documenting where monsters tended to show up. The player's handbook thing called them spawn points.

I never thought about it before reading that book, but it was a little strange that killing a flaming bat would net me a fire crystal. It would just show up in my inventory which was like an invisible bag. An invisible bag that made it so that we couldn't feel the weight of our items, which could get pretty heavy for some of us.

Funny though, that magic disappears so quickly when you know how it works. Or, at least the concept of how it works. I foolishly asked Yui how exactly this cardinal worked, and she started talking about numbers and codes and I had to stop her. I'm not all that into secret messages, or how they somehow correspond to making magic work.

That girl is so nice, despite her eccentricities. She genuinely wants to help everyone she meets, at least as far as I can discern. Asuna has been giving her manners lessons to get her up to the standards most of us live by. Asuna had said that Yui hadn't had human contact for her entire existence, so I could understand her difficulties.

Right now, I am pacing back and forth with the little girl on my shoulders. She smiled when I had lifted her up there, so I'm assuming she liked it.

In front of me, a purple window displays a tabloid article about someone getting drunk and dancing on a table. I hardly see how this is newsworthy, but whatever.

I glance at the three other girls. Asuna is still completely blank-faced, Lizbeth's eyes still look red, and Silica… She's hiding her eyes, but the veritable puddle of water that continues to spread tells that she's still broken up about our very temporary comrade's death.

It's weird. Out of the 4 of us here, I knew him the longest. My mother knows his, and I was his playmate growing up, at least until my own update. Yet, I was one of the least broken up. I felt bad, but his behavior towards the end… I can't help but think Yui was spot on that Kirito had gone off the deep end.

"Klein?"

I stop pacing and turn around to find Lizbeth had gotten out of her sitting position. "Klein, do you have a minute?"

"Yeah." I squat down and pull Yui off of my back. "Yui, go and comfort those two."

The girl looks up at me with her unblinking eyes and nods. "Understood."

Lizbeth and I watch her walk over to the other two girls before turning and heading down a narrow path that leads deeper into the forest.

"So, what do you want to talk about?" I ask politely.

"Kirito."

I could have guessed that. I could have guessed that she wanted to talk about him with only one eye and no ears. Maybe without even the eye.

"Yeah? What about him?"

"Why did he do what he did?" I was about to ask what she meant when she answered before I could ask. "Why did he just… leave? We had just saved his life, or something, but he got mad at us. It's not like we did anything to hurt him." She kicks at a rock which goes flying into the branches. I watch as the stone falls out of sight and hits something. "He was always pushing himself so hard. I wonder if he felt all alone up there on those higher floors."

"Probably." I shrug. When she looks at me, I just look back at her. "What? Yui said as much, and did you see his face when we confronted him on the… whatever level we confronted him on. He wanted us to believe so bad he delayed his escape. We almost got him too."

"Really?"

"Yeah. The Dragon's Alliance guild all got light gear and ran around side streets while we were confronting him. Their objective was to surround him in case we were unable to convince him to stand down." I grin ruefully. "Obviously, it didn't work as planned. I don't even think he noticed them."

Lizbeth shows a weak smile in return. Finally. This is the first time she hasn't looked like complete death since Kirito went and died.

The idiot.

"You know, I don't think Kirito is completely dead." Lizbeth murmurs loud enough form me to hear. "It's like he lives on in all of us."

"I didn't take you for the sappy type." I tease.

She snorts. He smile grows more genuine and less forced. "Heh, I'm usually not. I just… I don't know, I feel he's not gone. I mean, we're still trying to carry out his suicide mission, right"

I raise an eyebrow. "Suicide mission?"

"We're still going to try and clear the game, right? That means Heathcliff will be after us the second we go through the portal. How far do you think he will let us get before he comes after us? He hasn't deleted any of our progress yet, because it would be suspicious. It's only a matter of time before he decides to make those floors lock again. He'll have a good excuse, but he will. He loves this world, judging by his speech."

I nod. "I guess you are right. And, we're the only ones that still believe that this world is fake." I add glumly.

She sits down on a log heavily. "That damn fool." She stares up at me with a good approximation of Yui's unblinking stare. "Promise me this. I want you to make sure nobody else dies in our group. You are in charge of protecting us. Got it?"

"Of course. Just don't go and get yourself killed while I'm protecting the other four." I smirk.

Her weak smile comes back. She lies down on the log and looks up through the canopy. "You can start now. I'm going to sleep here, and you can watch over me."

I laugh. "Ok, but I'm going to make you return the favor later."

A smile crosses her lips once more before her eyes close and remain so for a few hours.

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

My eye would not stop twitching. There is a good reason for that too. See, I may have embarrassed myself in front of about thirty people in that tavern, which I am never going to ever again, but someone had taken pictures. And sent them to a small news source. Which then made my dancing a news story for some god-knows-why reason.

And now I was a celebrity again. Too bad that positive fame came with the added bonus of gender confusion. Apparently, not only do I look like a girl, but I dance like one as well. You know, that really just made me mad for some reason.

Aside from that, I don't know which made me more angry, that people kept asking for favors from me, autographs and poses, but they also kept 'whispering' about how flat my chest was. I was starting to get tempted to have Sachi write "boy" on my forehead. Seriously. I'm ashamed to be a part of the male species now.

Thankfully, the rest of my party felt pity for me and allowed me to retreat to our guild where I could be alone for the moment. It was a welcome relief until I realized I was alone again.

And that made me so sad I almost considered heading back out. I had never formed bonds like those I had with the Moonlit Black Cats before now, and I was just finding out that having forged those bonds it made me that much lonelier when I was completely cut off.

And then Sachi's message arrived.

If anyone had been recording me at the moment, I would've ended up in the paper again. I swear I almost yelled with joy.

"Sorry Klutz, if I had known what they were going to do, I would have stopped them. Keita says we are going to go back out tomorrow on floor 26, so to mentally prepare yourself. Oh, he also says that you should get some rest. He said you almost took his head off when your alarm went off this morning.

"I'll be back in a few minutes! –Sachi."

"Heh, he was awake. Oh well." I close the message just as a second one comes in. I glance at the sender and almost delete it offhand, but decide it's better to open it now then have the potentially needed advice go to waste.

"Klutz, Heathcliff is starting to look for more recruits for his own army. He is recruiting entire guilds by allowing them to remain their own guild, but they pledge to respond to orders in return for decent equipment. If your guild joins up, you be placed under even more scrutiny than you 'antics' last night have drawn… although I do believe that you are less likely to be identified as Kirito now.

"I have been monitoring Heathcliff, and he seems to be preparing for something large. I am very confused as to his objective, since he seems powerful enough to take out the army at full strength, and there is little else anyone can do against him. If this turns into a war, it's not going to be a quick one, and lots of people are going to die. I believe there are two or three reasons for this: I think he is planning on sweeping the already open floors to get rid of all the monsters he can and deny experience to any new upstarts like you or planning on invading the towns and instigating a ring around the safe zones where killing is legal to keep people contained. In either case, I believe he is imposing this as kind of a time limit for you. He's trying to draw you and your comrades out. It wouldn't be a good idea to attack him directly for obvious reasons.

"Stay safe, and level quickly. Your friends found a new hideout and are all currently safe.

"X"

"Gee. That's comforting." I say sarcastically.

"What is?"

I practically leap out of my chair. I turn around to find Sachi. "Jeez… Sachi, I'm sorry. Just got some… news."

"Can you tell me what?"

I hesitate, but her way to honest face made the decision for me. "Yeah, I don't know if it's public knowledge yet, but Heathcliff seems to be recruiting an army for some reason."

Her eyes light up. "Maybe he's going to start clearing floors like that Kirito guy is." She blinks and looks off into the distance. "I wonder if Kirito is still up there. Floor forty nine is unlocked, but fifty isn't yet, I don't think."

I blink. "Wait, you actually want these floors cleared?" I ask confusedly.

"Of course! I want to sit on the highest floor and watch the sun and the stars. I bet the view is beautiful up there."

"I… never thought about it that way." I say. It's true. I was so focused on clearing, I bet I walked right past some really nice places, like that one waterfall floor, or the one with the meadows…

"Not many people have. I don't think there is really any reason to get to the top floor for most people, it's just an objective that nobody understands. Maybe once we get up there we get some nice gear or a home right at the peak. Wouldn't that be nice? A house at the peak, nobody else to disturb you."

"That does sound cool, although I've heard that Aincrad is a castle more than a city, so maybe it's a throne room at the top."

She purses her lips and thinks for a minute. "Maybe. I wouldn't want to live in a throne room though."

I laugh. "Me neither. It sounds like it would be great at first, but then get old quickly."

Sachi smiles. "Let's find out together, okay?"

My smile vanishes. I hastily erect in back on, but Sachi definitely noticed. "Eh… Yeah, sure. I'm just trying to get stronger for the moment, so I hadn't really planned that far ahead." That was a lie. That was almost all I thought about now, at least when I wasn't being distracted by things like dying.

Wow. Not even dying fazes me anymore. I need my head checked by Yui.

"Oh. I… The Moonlit Black Cats all want to go to the top floor. I figured you did as well if you wanted to join a guild."

I scratch my head. "Technically, I was looking for a raid. I joined you guys as a guild member because you said you needed a guy on the front lines." I hang my head a little.

Sachi claps her hands together. "Well, you're one of us now. Remember, we're going to level 26 tomorrow!"

I mumble "Hope that my fame has died" and trudge down the stairs. Nobody else was back yet, so I might as well cook myself something. I look back over my shoulder. "Sachi, you want anything to eat?"

"No thanks." She says. "I just ate."

I nod and head down the rest of the stairs.

Thirty minutes go by and I realize I am not a chef. Asuna was smart to level the skill, seeing as the only thing I can make is eggs. And I still burnt half of them. I was still at it, and getting sick of my own cooking when the rest of the guild returned back to the guild hall.

I was so absorbed in trying to figure out what I was doing wrong that I didn't notice that there was another person with them when they walked in.

"Hey, Tetsuo. You're normally the cook, right? What am I doing wrong-"

I look at the newcomer in shock.

Why me?

Why this guild?

Heathcliff extends his hand. "Hi. I'm Heathcliff. It's my pleasure to meet you."

I am SO screwed.


	12. Chapter 12: Back On My Feet

(Kirito's Perspective)

Heathcliff sits down at the table in our guild's kitchen. I'm probably the definition of suspicious, having frozen in position whenever I laid eyes on him, but he hardly gave me a sideways glance.

Internally, I'm going 1000 miles an hour. Thoughts flit through my head so fast that my train of thought is a blur. Later, attempting to recall anything became an impossible task. Well, aside from the one major, dominating thought:

I'm screwed.

Thankfully I still followed the rest of my new guild members as they led Heathcliff to the dining area. I managed to sit down without falling out of my chair too.

Heathcliff accepts a cup of tea that Sachi offers and takes a sip before setting his cup down and looking at Keita. "Thank you for welcoming me into your guild."

Keita bows his head. "It's an honor to have you here, Sir."

Heathcliff waves his hand dismissively. "I would appreciate it if you didn't call me sir. I'm just the head of a guild, like you, so we are on equal footing." He chuckles "In fact, seeing as you're the one treating me, it should probably be the other way around."

Keita shakes his head. "Informal, then."

Heathcliff smiles and take another sip of his tea. "I trust you have heard of my hiring initiative?"

Everyone including me nods. Tetsuo speaks up. "Yeah, you're hiring guilds to work for you, right?"

Heathcliff takes another sip of his tea. Strangely, his calm slow demeanor was calming me down as well. A small part of my mind wonders if that was intentional, to calm down anyone who, like me, is wound up meeting the number one player. I begrudgingly give him a point in his favor.

"Yes, that is correct. Up until now, I have been recruiting entire guilds to work for me, and give them payment when they complete a task. It's useful for things I cannot afford to send my own Knights of the Blood to do. For example, The Dragon Alliance and the KoB do not get along, so we have hired several in-betweens that negotiate on our behalves. While that is only one of the tamer jobs I have to offer, it is nonetheless an important one."

Keita folds his hands. "Of course, you said that our group would have a more interesting proposition?"

Heathcliff sets his cup back down. Sachi notes that it is completely empty and quickly picks it up to provide a refill. "That is correct. Recently, one of my own has gone rogue."

The rest of the Moonlit Black Cats have a sharp intake of breath. Personally, I get a very bad feeling about this.

"Really? Why would anyone do that?" Sasamaru knits his brows together.

Heathcliff sighs and puts his head in his hands. "My lieutenant, Miss Asuna… She was led astray by Kirito."

My heart is pounding. Led astray my ass. I had to restrain myself from reaching over and trying to deck the guy, despite any number of reasons that wouldn't work. Level differences, in-city protection zone, five enamored guild mates… A disguise to maintain...

"She was trained by him, and when he developed his idea that we lived in a false world, she paid more heed than was due to her former teacher's word. Yesterday, I found her clearing her office in the KoB in preparation to more to some other location. When I asked her about it, she said that she had 'seen the light' and was going to follow in her mentor's footsteps."

I grit my teeth.

"That's horrible! You couldn't convince her to stay?" Sachi holds her hand over her mouth.

Heathcliff shrugs his shoulders. "She wouldn't listen to a word I said. She wants to be like Kirito, and that's that." He reaches up and wipes a tear from his eye. "We've gotten a bit off track. Asuna went into hiding today, and I do not think it's prudent to send any of my members after her, seeing as they may join her cause. That's where you come in."

He looks each of us in the eye in turn. "I want you to find where Asuna is hiding. It will be a long job, but I will pay a lot in advance. Needless to say, if you reject this offer you need to keep silent about it. I will provide you with high level equipment, and you will all be given a chance to power-level to become stronger faster."

Tetsuo and Sasamaru high-five each other. I have no difficulty telling that they were into the offer. Ducker smirks as he opens his menu. He had a habit of checking where he was in his skill tree each time he thought of leveling up. Keita's face is neutral. Sachi was the only member of the Moonlit Black Cats that actually seemed unhappy about the offer. Me? I'm pretty sure I was too busy looking at the rest of my new guild mates to form a response.

Or, maybe I was making a face, because Keita takes one look at me and his eyebrow shoot up. "Klutz?"

I blink and straighten up in my seat. "Er, yes? What do you need?"

"You looked like you wanted to take our heads off for a second." Keita gives me a lopsided grin. "What's bugging you?"

_The man across the table. _"Oh… I didn't get much sleep last night."

Several snickers great my response. To my great horror, Heathcliff had a small smile on his face. Oh crap he recognizes me from the news- My eyes widen. Maybe he has already figured out who I am? It would explain why he was doing this personal interview with us-

"Unfortunately, I must delay Klutz here a while longer. The rest of you may go and do whatever you wish."

_SHIT._

The four males of the group shrug and go raid the food storage. Sachi gives me a questioning look, her eyes asking me what she should do.

I give her a smile that is hopefully able to convey that I'll be alright. She stands up and gives a little bow, than walks out of the room.

Heathcliff clears his throat. I open my menu subtly underneath the table, hoping he wouldn't notice my arm twitching- or use any outside programs to see what I was doing. Of course, I had little hope that any of my currently subpar weapons could do anything to his massive health.

"Klutz. What an… interesting nickname."

I shrug. "I always went by my regular name until I joined this guild. I'm kind of clumsy, so it fits."

"And you joined this guild rather recently, is that correct?" Heathcliff opens his menu and glances at a few different pages before closing it back down.

"I joined yesterday." I take a deep breath and sit back in my chair.

"What motivated you to join a guild?"

I have been dreading this question. I had avoided thinking about it too much, but now that was coming back to bite me.

My eyes automatically flit up to the top corner of my vision as I receive a message. Heathcliff was apparently watching me closely enough to see the involuntary movement.

"Go ahead and answer the message." He says dismissively. "I'm in no hurry, and this tea is delicious." He takes a long sip as if to demonstrate his point.

I open the mail to find a letter from X. How convenient. I open it swiftly.

"Your character has lost both of his parents to an unknown PK guild. You are motivated by revenge. If you had actually read my backstory instead of skimming it, you wouldn't be having problems."

My eye twitches. I type back a response as fast as I can.

"Maybe if it wasn't literally an entire backstory worthy of its own play! I would still be less than halfway through it if I hadn't skipped most of it!"

I send off the message and close my menu in a huff. Heathcliff sets down his tea. "Where were we? Ah, yes. Your reason for joining the Moonlit Black Cats."

I look down at the table. "My parents were killed by a PK guild. I don't know which one, but I'm trying to find them. I need to be strong to deal with them, so I joined this guild. It's a bit more fun than I thought it was going to be though." I raise my head. "I actually forgot about why yesterday when I was fighting by their sides. It was like I was finally alive. I even forgot about avenging my parents temporarily, which was a relief to be honest."

Hopefully, enough of the truth was mixed in there that Heathcliff wouldn't see through the lie.

Heathcliff nods. "I too once had someone I wanted to kill for crimes against me and my own."

My skin crawls. I would bet all of my old Col that Heathcliff was talking about me. Past me.

"However, that is of no concern anymore. I have come to talk to you about your special duties if your guild accepts this mission, or even if they decline it. You will go along with the rest of your guild until you find Asuna for me. Then, your special task begins."

Please, _please_ don't tell me to kill Asuna. I won't be able to do that.

"I want you, and you alone to make contact with Asuna and her new party and infiltrate them. I currently have no way of spying in on them, which was as you recall one of my reasons for hiring guilds outside the KoB. It will be especially risky, because I have a suspicion that they are still attempting to head for the one hundredth floor."

My mouth started talking of its own accord, despite my brain frantically informing my mouth that speaking this particular thought was a horrifyingly bad idea. "Why is that bad?"

Heathcliff nods. "I have gotten that question a lot today. What level were you're parents when they were killed?"

"I… I think around level ten each?" It comes out more like a question, but Heathcliff shrugs it off.

Seriously, he wasn't acting at all in the way I would expect him too. It's getting worrying.

"Well, until recently, we were barely holding back the monsters on floor twelve. Since almost half the floors have been opened up, We have been able to learn about all new types of monsters, all of which are very capable of killing us a lot more easily that the ones on level twelve. I worry that someone will open a floor and release something that will come down to the lower levels and eradicate us. If you recall any of our history, you know that we used to have up past floor thirty, then got pushed back when we were unable to hold our own against the powerful creatures. Then, we had a lot more people willing to fight on a regular basis than we have now."

He takes a sip of his tea. "If we let Asuna continue to open more levels, who knows when she'll unlock a floor that goes straight through everyone like they're wielding cheap swords? I need to make sure that we can defend those who do not wish to fight when or if it comes to that."

Frankly, I'm impressed and a little shocked. That wasn't something I had thought of as I had ripped through the lower floors, and now here it was being presented as a problem that might've even swayed my opinion when I was just starting out if I had heard it. My stomach churns. What would I have done if I had inadvertently allowed something to get down to the lower floors and kill mom and dad?

"I hadn't thought of that." I say honestly. "I never thought that they were doing any harm before, but when you put it that way…"

Heathcliff leans back in his chair. "I'm glad you agree. I am sure now that you're the candidate for my spy. Will you accept this task I have assigned you, despite whatever the rest of your guild decides?"

I furrow my brow as I think. My mind keeps drifting back to imagining my mother being torn to shreds by a giant dragon I had been unable to stop, or a large troll thing or maybe even those scorpions on floor twelve. "I…"

It would be a chance to see Asuna again. She was still trying to continue what I had started, but I wasn't too sure about that anymore. I mean, Heathcliff had said that there wasn't anything outside the game for us, and I would kill myself if I doomed everyone in Aincrad to living inside those gel tubes. My entire reason to fight since floor 13 was slipping from my grasp, suddenly becoming a lot harder to rationalize.

"Klutz?" Heathcliff asks. "If you want, I can give you a day to think about it."

I snap my head upright. "No need. I'll… I'll do it." Say with all the conviction I can muster. In any case, I get to see Asuna again. I can figure out something from there.

Heathcliff smiles. "Excellent. Now, I hope I can get your guild members to join, as it will be safer for you overall if you have backup."

He picks up his teacup, tilts his head back to swallow the rest of its contents, and sets it down with a loud clack on the table. "Please excuse me. I have another matter that has just cropped up." He opens his menu and flicks through a few things. "Klutz, hmm. I'm sending you a friend invite so that we can stay in communication. Please inform me of the other's decision when they come to one."

"I understand." I say. "Though, if I know them, then they were already listening to us talk and could probably give you their answer right now."

Heathcliff chuckles. "No doubt. Still, I must be off. Give my regards." He waves as he strides out of the room towards the guild exit.

I stand there in the kitchen for what seems like an hour until I am interrupted by Sachi cleaning up the table. "Er, Let me help with that-"

* * *

Three days later, I look around at my now much slicker looking guild. Everyone has much better armor and weapons now, and even I feel like I am getting back to my old strength after power-leveling on floor 48. We had been teamed up with, quite oddly, Fuurinkazan. I had hoped to see Klein there, but nobody seemed to know where he was. When I got asked why I wanted to know, I always just said I wanted to meet such a powerful guy. That always earned a few chuckles.

While still not really anywhere close to level 80, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Everyone in our guild is more or less at level 50, which ought to be enough to take out anything or anyone that gets in our way. I really didn't like the idea of killing more players; I supposed that if we encounter people out in the wilderness I might not have much of a choice.

Keita wraps an arm around Sachi in a friendly manner, but it still makes her blush. "How you holding up Sachi?"

The shy girl ducks her head to hide behind her hair. "I'm doing fine, really. We're very strong now."

Keita smiles broadly. "That's right! I bet we could go right up and kick even that Kirito guy's ass if we wanted too!"

Not a chance. Not that I would say that out loud.

Speaking of my former self, I had been announced dead officially and had my actions detailed with an understandable bent on how poorly my actions were thought out. My talk with Heathcliff only makes the words dig more deeply. Not for the first time in the past three days, I wonder just how much Heathcliff knows. If he knew my identity, he couldn't have done a better job at undermining my confidence in my own actions. If he didn't know, that went doubly so.

I shift uncomfortably to my other leg. I have been standing around with the rest of the Moonlit Black Cats for the better part of an hour, waiting for Heathcliff. Hs latest message to me was that he wants to meet all of us before we go out and search for Asuna.

The past three days, I had watched as the news of my death spread. Heathcliff had made a statement so heartfelt that he almost had me in tears before I remember that not only was he mourning me, but he was the one that killed me. I still couldn't get a solid read on the man, as if he had multiple personalities that he could turn on or off at will.

After the announcement, I had wondered how my parents were coping. The answer was that they weren't. I had arrived at their shop during normal opening hours only to find that it had been closed down, possibly for good. I couldn't exactly ask where they had gone without raising suspicion, so I had decided to head back.

I saw them on my way back to the telepad. Dad and mom look like they had been hit by a Warhammer. Neither of them looked up from their shoes except to navigate. They were clinging to each other like they were afraid if they let go the other would drift away. I wanted so desperately to go to them and comfort them, but I couldn't exactly tell them what happened. Even if I tried to, it would result in someone I didn't want to know it knowing it. Heathcliff would go back to hunting me as fast as you can say "teleport crystal."

"Klutz?"

I jerk back to my senses and blink at Ducker's amused face.

"What's got you so distant?"

"Just thinking about my parents."

The rest of the Moonlit Black Cat's jaws snap closed audibly, their conversations instantly forgotten. Sachi turns her worried gaze to me.

Oh, right. I had told them my backstory, since I was pretty sure they had heard a little bit earlier anyway. They had taken it well, and after a bit of commiserating, they had graciously dropped the subject.

"Don't worry, I'm fine." I plaster a grin to my face. "You guys ready?"

"Yeah, or I will be when Heathcliff decided to show up." Ducker says. He's currently sifting through some menus, all hidden from our view.

"Then, your wait is over."

We all turn to find the imposing grey haired man smiling at us. "Good morning."

"Good morning." Comes the sentiment echoed from all of our throats.

"Thank you for holding off on leaving until I arrived. I was… delayed by some information that had to be taken care of immediately."

Keita shrugs. "It happens, especially when you have a large guild, I suspect."

Heathcliff chuckles. "Yes, I suppose you are right." He gathers himself and draws an item from his inventory. He tosses the package to me. "I entrust this object to you. It will help you get in with Asuna when the time comes. However, should that item ever be let out of your sight or inventory, you must tell me immediately. It contains something very dangerous. I would recommend opening it only once you have located Asuna."

I nod my head and tuck the package into my inventory. Sasamaru and Ducker look curious as to the contents, but I shoot them a glare.

"Good luck to you all. Please update me as soon as you find anything."

Keita gives an affirmative reply and we turn and step onto the teleporter pad.

"Teleport: Midplains!"

* * *

(Asuna's Perspective)

Klein sits across from me in our new base. I had picked this one because it was on a floor most people wouldn't be familiar with, but was already mapped so nobody was likely to come by surveying to complete their map. Floor 45, Midplains.

Although, Midplains was only its main name. It seems to have a few names, judging by the sign that had greeted us as we teleported in. My personal favorite was "Rim of the Sky" which made the most sense, it being an almost completely flat floor covered in greenery, which seems uninteresting until the ground and plants start attacking you whenever you attempted to wade through them. We would all exceptionally lucky that we had Silica along, since her dragons grew to full size on this floor and were able to carry us over the majority of the threats. The southwestern area is covered by a forest, and in there are all the cities on this floor, alone with buildings scattered throughout the forest.

"So… what now?" Klein asks softly.

"I… We need to form a strategy for clearing the next floor. We also need to get more recruits." I say halfheartedly. Really, I just wanted to lie in my bed and go to sleep, but given I had developed something akin to insomnia the past few days, that felt like a distant dream.

"Right. I talked to Yui though, and she said that that weren't any good candidates out there. Only the one guy, and he joined a different guild."

I sigh heavily. This was the third time we've had this conversation, or at least a version of it. I think Klein realizes that I just don't want to go just yet, but is continuing to push me towards leaving sooner rather than later. "Yeah, she told me already. I don't envy her the job she's doing, seeing as we still wouldn't have found this… what did she say he calls himself?"

"Klutz." Klein shrugs. "He sounds like a joke, but if Yui says that he's our best candidate, he's our best candidate."

I briefly consider how Klein's demeanor towards Yui has changed. He started off thinking she was creepy and completely ignoring her advice, and now he nearly regards it as infallible. It brings a small smile to my face.

"Er, how long do you think it's going to be before Klutz catches up to us?" Klein asks. "I mean, the longer we stay here, the more likely we are to be found, by someone else as likely as him."

I push my chair back and stand up. "I'm going to get some fresh air. I can't think in here right now."

Klein nods resignedly. "Do you know where Lizbeth is?"

I shake my head. "She said she was going to go see if she could scrounge up some food. If I see her, I'll tell her to send you a message."

Klein nods and set his head in his hands above the desk. As I close the door behind me, I see him swipe his fingers downwards to open his menu, eyes still hidden by his left hand.

Klein and Lizbeth had something interesting happening between them. I am sure that Lizbeth liked Kirito due to how hard she had taken his death, but she seems to be recovering faster than I am. Maybe she and Klein were developing feelings for each other?

I have to admit that I'm a bit jealous of the two of them. I wish I could just move on too, but… I was the only one to actually see what happened with my eyes. I think Lizbeth and the others still think somewhere, deep in their hearts, that Kirito could still be alive somewhere. I know that if I hadn't seen it first hand, I wouldn't believe it either.

The fresh air hits my face as I step out the door. Leaves float away on the wind, turning into little bursts of color as they shatter and the prisms making them up catch the dying light. The little sound of the individual shatterings couldn't be heard, but the frequency that they occurred causes a steady rustling sound that is quite soothing.

I let the sounds wash over me as I close my eyes, ignoring my primary sense to just listen. I remain there, silent and alone for a while.

When I finally open my eyes back up, the light has almost completely faded. I sigh and turn around, meaning to head inside.

Our guild hall, or whatever anyone wants to call it, is actually a very nice cabin. It's only got one story, but it is ornately decorated and has very nice woodwork all around it. If I wasn't currently hiding from my former boss, I would have been thrilled to own this little cabin.

I would've liked to share it with Kirito.

I'm still not sure how I feel about him. He was only in my life for a few weeks, but… I like him. It doesn't make sense, and the more I think about it the more absurd it becomes. At first I thought it might be a crush that formed just because he saved me twice, but I don't think a crush would hurt as much as this did.

I shake those thoughts loose. It does no good dwelling on them. I realize I'm still staring up at the building and not inside, so I move to the door and open it.

"Asuna?"

I turn to face Lizbeth. "Oh, hi. I didn't see you there."

She bobs her head distractedly. "Yeah. Er, Yui sent me to look for you."

I raise my eyebrows. "Yui sent you? Why?"

"She said that there are players approaching our location. One of them is supposed to be the guy we're picking up."

I stare at Lizbeth for a second. "Just like that?"

"Yeah, I'm getting a bad feeling too. Yui was also acting weirdly, so you might want to check what's up with her as well."

I turn around and walk quickly through the door, and Lizbeth follows shortly after. True to form, once the building was secured Yui teleports in and looks at me. "Did you get my message?"

"Yes. You said Klutz is coming here now?"

Yui continues to stare at me without moving. "Yes. Although, I advise caution. He has gone through some unusual stress patterns in the past few days. These emotional fluctuations started when he met with Papa."

My eyes unfocus. What? How did Leader know… I look back at the unmoving, unreadable little girl. Maybe she's still working for Leader? No, that didn't make sense, since she was telling us now. Then why was Klutz with them?

Yui's head tilts. "They are within sight of the cabin. I will inform the three others in this building of their impending arrival."

Lizbeth nods and Yui disappears. I turn to the pink haired blacksmith. "What do you think?"

She shakes her head. "I think we should ambush them, figure out which one is Klutz, and capture the others. We can tie them up while we relocate."

"Yeah, but I'm still not sure we can even trust Klutz. Remember what Yui said."

"Good point. We ambush all of them, knock them out, and get Klutz's facts straight."

I nod and turn to the nearest window. Klein and Kuradeel both come out of the back rooms, weapons already drawn. Kuradeel motions for me to get away from the window, and for once I comply, as he looks more concerned with the intruders than me.

I almost felt so relieved that I forgot about those outside. Almost.

"Have they been spotted? Do we know their numbers?" Klein asks quietly, despite the sound barrier that would make it impossible for them to hear us.

"No they haven't been spotted, but I think Yui would know how many of them there are."

"Six." Comes the little girl's voice. "Including Klutz, who is currently an unknown."

"Okay, we're going to ambush them." I say. "We knock them all out, and then we find out which one of them we want."

Lizbeth looks around her. "Um, where's Silica?"

"She decided to exit through the back window, heading for the cave where we're keeping the dragons."

I glare at Klein. "Why didn't you go with her?"

His eyes widen. "She's not my responsibility!"

I resist the urge to stab him with my rapier. "Fine. I'll head back and exit through the rear. You three wait for them in here, and I'll try my best to get the two of us behind them before you get attacked."

Klein gulps and gives me a nervous thumbs up. Lizbeth and Kuradeel both respond in kind. I repeat the gesture and bolt for the back of the cabin.

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

"Whoa, it looks like Heathcliff's information was accurate." Ducker whispers in awe.

Despite the fact I was staring right at the guy, I was having a hard time seeing him. So that's what a maxed out stealth character looks like. I had put a lot of points into stealth, but I had always prioritized damage rather than sneaking. I had to admit that Ducker's build was perfect for our current job. Heathcliff has very good judgment, which wasn't necessarily a good thing. I still don't know how much he knows, which is infuriating, let me tell you.

"Well duh, he wouldn't send us on a wild goose chase without warning us first." Keita says, also quietly.

Sachi grips my arm as I look back and forth between the building and our party. "So, what's the plan?" I ask matching the volume of the others.

"We don't know how many of them there are, so we need to sneak up on them and hopefully get them by surprise. It's not going to end well if we go against a guild twice our size in a full frontal assault. I need to form an actual plan now, so we should retreat temporarily." Keita says thoughtfully.

Sachi looks at him owlishly. "But, how are we sure that there's even someone in there? Or that if there is, that's it's the people we're looking for?"

"Because Heathcliff told us this is the most likely spot for them to be hiding. As to whether or not there's anyone here…" Tetsuo points to the cabin.

We all look where he's pointing to see a pale white face looking out the window.

Directly at me.

Aw crap, I forgot Yui was working for Asuna. That means she already knows we're here, and are probably trying to do something about us now. I'm not even sure if that's bad though. I'm trying to find where my loyalties lay, a great thing to do on a stealth mission. Especially one that just went belly up.

"Uh, I think she sees us." I say, putting an edge in my voice. "We should go."

"Why would you think they know we're here?"

"Y- The person in the window is looking at me." I say, quickly covering up the slip of the tongue. I almost said Yui, which would not be a wise move.

Keita grimaces. "Okay then. We have little choice." He draws his weapon, a two handed staff that he had received from Heathcliff. "Prepare to defend yourselves."

Ducker slips back behind our formation and draws his daggers, his stealth effect still going strong for at least another minute.

"We don't know how far Asuna's group is willing to go, so be prepared to fight to the death." Keita says.

Sachi grips my arm hard enough to make me drop the sword I was holding. "Sachi, you need to let go."

She abruptly releases my arm and blushes. I pick my sword back up and get into a ready stance, as close as I can be to activating my sword skill without the sword glowing and trying to force me through the motions of a combo.

A tense silence falls over those assembled. I can feel my muscles quivering from waiting in place. We wait an eternity that my casual glances at my clock assured me was less than a minute overall.

Sasamaru opens his mouth to speak, but Keita puts his finger to his lips before he can say anything.

Something snaps to my left. I whirl around and slice at the source of the noise, only to find I had sliced something into pieces. A small window opens and informs me I had slain a monster and earned-

The window disappears of its own accord, something that only happens when being attacked or after a minute of inactivity. I shove my sword upwards without even looking and block a strike with a loud clang.

My eyes track up to see a very determined Asuna had jumped off a dragon to fight with me.

"From above!" I shout as I block Asuna's follow up strike, a thrust that skims along my sword and leaves her overextended. If I had been aiming to kill her, I would have the perfect chance right now. Of course, since I didn't I contented myself with staring at her very surprised face.

I have to admit, had I not heard the twig and subsequently killed… whatever, Asuna's strike would likely have knocked me out. Good thing I know how the system works.

Asuna lands gracefully, which must have been hard to do from her full on dive, and her rapier immediately comes around and attempts to poke a hole in my chest. I let it slide along my sword again, flicking my wrist at the last second to deflect the weapon off to the side. Asuna's grip on the weapon slackens, but she retains her hold on the sword.

"Who are you?" She hisses at me, switching the sword to her left hand and shaking her wrist out.

"I'm-"

Sachi screams. I whip my head around to find Silica standing over the prone form of the blue haired girl.

I immediately rush over and smack Silica off of her, apologizing profusely in my head as I check her health bar in my party status area.

Damn, that is useful.

She's alright, but unconscious. I turn back to Asuna. "So, you aren't intending to kill us."

She narrows her eyes. "What makes you think that?"

"Neither of your attacks were meant to kill, and Sachi's alright. If anyone would be dead by now it's her."

Asuna's only response is to charge me with her sword outstretched. I easily dodge it, but too late I notice that her sword is glowing white, disguised by the white color of the sword itself. Her sword combo starts in earnest, making me go completely on the defensive. My sword weaves back and forth, attempting to stall out the move, but her sword darts in and out faster than I could track properly. Me losing so many levels had really made me a lot slower.

I recognize the combo after the third strike. It's a high level rapier skill designed to poke a lot of shallow holes in someone, causing more pain than damage. It's a lot more effective against players than monsters, seeing as players respond to pain more readily, but does have its uses against certain monsters. It's an eleven strike combo.

I fail to block the tenth hit.

Asuna's sword jabs into my stomach, sudden pain searing through me. Must be a fire sword, I think distantly. The last strike, and incidentally the most powerful, collides with my head.

I feel myself fall backwards and struggle to keep my eyes open as my brain reels from the impact.

Asuna walks into my sight, blocking my view of the forest canopy.

I couldn't hear what she was saying, my ears ringing loud enough to block out all but the loudest sounds. Fortunately, I understand the gist of what she was getting at.

"I'm not going to be stopped by the likes of you."

She looks up and a see a flash of red from a sword skill right before my eyes close and I lose my senses.


	13. Chapter 13: Liar

(Kirito's Perspective)

"We're going to clear all the floors at once!"

Silence. I look around at the others to find either states of shock or, in Klein's case, resignation.

"B-but how is that possible?" Lizbeth splutters.

Klein sighs deeply. "It's not what you guys are thinking. I told her not to go with the dramatic line, but noooo." He stands up. "Have fun explaining it, Asuna. I'm going to go lie down for a while."

All eyes turn back to our leader, who suddenly looks a bit nervous. "Oh, uh, well I made a plan." Her hands clench and unclench restlessly. "See, this plan is a lot riskier than it sounds. Um… It basically boils down to us going and clearing each floor, but not activating it."

"Huh?" Silica raises her hand. "I don't get it!"

Asuna smiles at the youngest member of the group. "On each floor, there's a switch or a button that allows each floor to be open to teleportation. So far, Kirito has activated all 35 or so switches he's come across. In my plan, we're going to purposely avoid flipping them until the very end."

Klein, obviously still listening, calls from his sleeping mat about twenty feet away. "Don't forget to tell them the complications!"

Asuna sighs. "Yes, Klein. I was about to do that. Klein, Yui and I were all discussing this when we thought of something. So far, no floor has been cleared without activating the teleport for the one below it. There's a chance that refusing to flip the switch will make it impossible to clear the floor. Our main reason for considering this is that Kirito continued to open the new floors as he got to them."

Huh. I didn't think of that. If this plan works… I might've gone all the way to the top without dying.

Asuna continues. "So, it's going to be a gamble on whether or not we can make it. I do have a solution though."

She opens her inventory and selects an item, which materializes in her outstretched palm. It looks a bit like an ornamental temple, mostly a translucent blue with red crystal fused in odd places.

"This is a corridor crystal. It's used by setting a position by breaking off the red parts where you want the teleport to go, traveling elsewhere, and using the blue portion. It allows multiple people to go through at once, so it's unlike a regular teleport crystal. Also, if you return to the spot without using the crystal you can reattach the red bits and reset the endpoint, so we can keep them if the plan succeeds."

I remember the Army used one of those on me when I became a red player.

Lizbeth gestures and Asuna hands the pink haired girl the crystal. "I've heard of these, but aren't they ridiculously expensive?"

Asuna nods. "Leader- Heathcliff had a few of them in the guild vault for who-knows-what. I decided that we could use them more than anyone in the KoB could."

Lizbeth hands the crystal over and Asuna puts it back in her inventory, safe from accidental shattering. Asuna clears her throat. "Yeah. Um, we're going to move out as soon as the sun comes up. We'll head to the topmost level we can access currently, floor forty nine. Then we'll start searching for the dungeon. As far as I can tell from when we were up there, it's not going to be hard, it looks like an entire floor made of water. From there, we defeat the final boss and go to the next floor, fifty, which we will not activate. We'll set up the corridor's warp point and then go and finish floor 50. If we can progress without problems, then we'll continue until we get all the way to the top. Otherwise, we go back to the way Kirito did things."

Kuradeel crosses his arms. "If we can't progress without flipping the switches, what are we going to do? As in, how are we going to avoid getting killed when we have to flip the switches?"

Asuna hesitates, and Klein again chimes in. "We can just use the corridors. Asuna has ten of them, and in an emergency we can warp to a safer place." He rolls over on his mat, almost invisible in the darkness. "I wish we had a few more of the crystals, maybe forty or so."

"Don't we all?" I mutter.

Asuna starts talking to Kuradeel and Silica, Lizbeth wanders off in Klein's direction, and I try to stand up, only to remember my personal space invader.

On my lap, Yui shifts around, twisting her torso around. I look down at her sleeping form. Wasn't sleeping in people's laps reserved for couples and siblings? I mean, yeah, Yui's cute, but she's also about ten… or, rather she's one hundred and six. Of course, she looks like she's sixteen...

She's also _fake._

She hums deep in her throat as she sleeps. I smile slightly at her sleeping face. There's still a lot I don't know about her. Does she have emotions? She's never shown any in her normal form, but with this new software, she was acting all sorts of human. If she does and just never felt the need to display them, then maybe this programming s just forcing her inner self out into the world. On the other hand, Yui herself stated he was an adapting program, and on top of that was trying to adapt the new program into herself completely. Maybe she doesn't have emotions, but with the new code is just responding how it was programmed to respond to emotions. Yui's obviously excellent at reading emotional states, and could easily display the correct one for a situation without too much trouble.

I wonder if I could tell between the two. I mean, technically, they're functionally identical. The only difference is one Yui has her own feelings, and the other she's responding to outside emotions. Of course, if you want to get philosophical, isn't that what we all do? I respond to everyone else's emotions and base how I react off of their moods. If Yui is doing that, is that the same as her having her emotions?

I think about it for a few minutes before coming to a solution to my thoughts. In only one scenario would I be able to tell whether Yui actually has emotions or is just responding. It has to be an argument with her. If I can get her to disagree with me about something, that will prove she can feel strongly enough about something to stop helping us wholeheartedly, I can pretty much say at that point that Yui truly feel emotions.

I let my brain return to my reality to find my right hand had decided to tangle itself in the blue hair while I was thinking. Yui's new teal eyes are half lidded, and the open fully as I gently try to untangle the mess I made of her hair and my hand.

She yawns before speaking. "Did Asuna explain everything?"

"I think so." I finally extract my hand, but her hair is still a snarled knot. "We're going to have one hell of a time, aren't we?"

"Yep." Yui says. "I can't wait. I can go and fight like you used to, and maybe even be remembered for my contribution."

My smile freezes on my face. I know Yui has less control of what she was saying with Sinon active, but referencing Kirito when talking about Klutz is a large risk.

"Oy, maybe you don't talk about that in front of others?" I admonish softly.

"Talk about what?"

My head jerks up to find Asuna looking at me with a mixture of curiosity at my words and disgust presumably from Yui's head still being in my lap. I gently tip Yui upright and she yawns yet again. Maybe not sleeping for over a hundred years is still catching up to her.

"Er, nothing. Just chatting with Yui here."

Asuna slowly nods, disbelief written plainly across her face. "Right. Well, I forgot I had something very important to do. How many contacts do you have?"

I automatically reach out my right arm to open my menu, but Asuna's rapier is at my throat before I fully extend my arm. Damn her for increasing her speed to such absurd levels.

"I need to check, okay?" I grumble. "Just watch, I'm not gonna send out any messages or anything."

"Good. Despite your compliant attitude, you're still close enough to Heathcliff to make me wary." Kuradeel steps out from behind Asuna. "In fact didn't you say you can here as a spy?"

I raise both my hands. "Whoa. I know that, but he approached all the Black Cats as a guild. I just happen to be willing to work for you honestly just as much as for him deceitfully."

Kuradeel's eyes light up for the first time… actually, this is the first time I've ever seen him even come close to smiling. "Asuna, I have an idea!"

Asuna turns to him, the point of the rapier slightly lifting off my throat. "Really?"

Kuradeel beams. "Yes! We can have him send false information back to Heathcliff, with just enough truth in it to make it hard for him to track us. Since we hauled him off as a captive, we can say we released him, have him mention where we are currently, and then move out. Heathcliff will be on our heels, but we can stay a few steps ahead of him easily. Since he's been treated like an enemy, any time he sends off a completely wrong message, he can write it off to Heathcliff as him being forced to misinform him."

Asuna frowns. "That's very problematic in its own right. If we let him continue to communicate with the others in his guild, there's a good change of him being able to betray us."

Kuradeel's left eyebrow lifts. "I'm impressed. I didn't think you would've thought about that."

Asuna blushes. "Well, I was bored, and that book you loaned me has made me kind of paranoid."

I didn't realize I was staring daggers at Kuradeel until Asuna looked back at me and let out a small 'eep' sound. I don't even know why-

"Well, the solution is to have him enable the ability for others to look over his shoulder at his menu. Then, he can't hide messages, their content, or anything else from us. Have Klein or someone watch him all the time, and if he acts suspicious we can have Yui deal with him." Kuradeel puts a smug smile on his face that made me want to smash his face in for some reason. I don't know, I'm just getting a very weird feeling from him.

Asuna considers this for a moment, then smiles. "Well, I think that's a good idea, but he's still going to have to lose his guild. Remember, you can track others in your guild in certain areas."

Ah, damn. Less than a full week, and already have to quit the Moonlit Black Cats. I slowly open my menu and upon not having my head removed, I press the leave guild button. I hesitate at the final warning, the words "Are you sure?" glaring at me like Sachi herself was pleading me not to go… first chance I get, I need to tell her that I'm alright.

I press the okay button. Asuna relaxes a bit as the small icon next to my health bar disappears. The pointy end of her sword drifts away from the skin over my throat.

Yui finally opens her eyes fully and looks around. "What did I miss?"

"I've been forced to leave my guild to avoid being tracked, and I've been assigned a bodyguard to keep me company."

Yui blinks. "Really? Who is it?"

Kuradeel coughs. "We haven't picked anyone yet-"

"I volunteer!" Yui waves her hand around like an excited ten year old.

Asuna glares at me again. I give her my best helpless expression, seeing as I have no control over Yui. "I guess I have no reason to say no." She grits out from between her teeth. "However, I will be watching you two."

I rub the back of my head. That would work out the best for both parties, seeing as Yui can search through my mail without having to try especially hard, can keep an eye on me from floors away, and on my end can give me reports when everyone else is gone. Yes, I'm starting to like this arrangement-

Wait, Yui has demonstrated that she can read mail I send, so that means she knows about x, and the way x doesn't trust her.

Though, if that's valid, then x just let himself be exposed to Heathcliff, which would have been a very stupid move on his part. So there must be something I'm missing. I'll have to think of a way to ask Yui without her catching on.

She turns to me, her teal eyes searching my soul, possibly literally. "Is something wrong?"

I shake my head and smile weakly. "It's… nothing that needs to be said here." I stretch my arms up and yawn. "Alright, so we're leaving first thing tomorrow? I'm going to get some sleep in then. See you all in the morning." I stand up, followed by Yui. I give her a sharp glance, but she misses its point and continues to follow me over to a spot I had decided to sleep in.

"Yui, find somewhere else to sleep." I point back to the campfire, outside hearing distance. "Asuna already is acting weird, I don't want to make her stand over me with her blade drawn."

"But I'm supposed to watch you to make sure you don't do anything suspicious." Yui pouts. "I can't do that if I'm far away from you."

I roll my eyes. "Of course you can. You said yourself that you can track me across floors."

Yui falls silent. I wait for an answer briefly before remembering that she supposedly has blocks in place to prevent her from spouting technical stuff.

"Oh, right, you can't talk about that." I place my head in my hands and try to think. I can't force her leave, seeing as I'm under watch and that would constitute rebellion, but… As far as I can tell, Yui has every intention of sleeping right next to me, something I am not comfortable with. I couldn't even use her true nature as a reason to avoid the issue because I'm not supposed to know about it-

Oh, that's why Yui can't leave. I'm not supposed to know that she can almost read my mind, and that letting me run down to the first floor wouldn't be far enough to get out from Yui's omnipresence.

A seed of doubt is insidious. My thoughts turn towards x's message. If Yui really is an enemy, then she knows entirely too much about us and what we are doing. She's also tied into the system in a way we can never be, which give's Heathcliff an even more unfair advantage over us. I look up to see the Blue haired Yui, once stock still when not engaging anything, now sway slightly and rock back and forth on her heels.

I would have to ask x somehow. Maybe while Yui is transferring between personalities.

In the meantime, I'm going to set up camp. I open my inventory and am surprised to be relieved when I didn't immediately feel metal at my neck. I pull out a sleeping bag and lie down on it, barely registering Yui mimicking my actions beside me. I look at the bottom of the next floor up, little pinpricks of light shining from what looks like a much larger distance than it actually can be.

I have no idea what I'm doing, really. I've had to keep so many things in my head recently, I feel like I'm going to burst.

I used to be Kirito, and only two people know it, x and Yui. I know x is more or less on my side, seeing as he resurrected me. I don't really know enough about him to say that he's a friend, but he's done nothing overtly out of my best interests so far. Yui is more complicated because while she seems to be on our side, she could just be being told to act that way. I suspect Heathcliff has at least some control over her, being part of his system, so trusting her completely is not a good idea. The problem is that everything she says has the weight of information behind it and can't be disregarded.

As for Asuna's group, they're trying to go to the top floor. I don't know why, if it's just to continue where I left off or if they each have their own reason for going up there I have no idea. I do know that if Asuna's plan works, we're going to be out of this sooner rather than later.

Speaking of which, Heathcliff said that outside there is nothing. Literally nothing. In the handbook's written notes, there was a mention of something called space that sounds awful, and I think that's what Heathcliff was talking about when he said there's nothing out there for us.

Just big, empty space.

Is it even worth trying to go to the top level? Being trapped in those jelly tubes for all eternity sounds a lot worse than the situation we're in now.

"Klutz? What's the matter?"

I open my blurry, tearing eyes to see the normally cheerful face of Silica looking down at me.

"Oh, hi there. Nothing too much. Just wondering if what I'm doing is the right thing to do."

Silica sits back, and I have to turn my head to see her outline against the stars. "Of course it is!"

"Really? How are you so sure of yourself?" I ask.

"Well…" Silica frowns. "It's like this. Heathcliff is lying to everyone, right?"

I nod. If nothing else, he has shown that that is true.

"Mom and Dad taught me that lying is bad. Since he's doing bad things, that means when we do the opposite and stop him, we're doing good things."

I smile a bit. "Is that how you see it?"

Silica beams. "Of course! If I didn't, why would I stay with these guys? I mean, Klein's creepy, Asuna's strict, Kuradeel's creepy, Lizbeth's crazy, and Yui's a pro- um, I mean, Yui's a pro with a bow. Which is creepy."

Despite myself I laugh. "Is that how you see them? Creepy, strict, creepy, crazy and creepy?"

Silica pouts. "Well, they are. Look at them, Kuradeel's always looking at Asuna, Asuna's always making someone do something, and Klein's drooling over some picture he hides whenever I walk towards him, Lizbeth throws things for no reason (usually at Klein though), and Yui is always spouting things that make no sense, even after she explains them three times." She crosses her arms and puffs out her cheeks. "You're the only normal guy here, and you've already been taken by Yui."

I really, really wanted to disagree with that last bit, but Sinon's personality sure wasn't helping matters. What did she think she was doing anyway?

"I wouldn't say taken, but she does seem to be coming after me for some reason." I smile weakly again. "Honestly, you're right, it's a bit creepy. I don't know anyone here that well yet, so her familiar attitude throws me a bit."

Silica flops over sideways in the grass. "It's something about Asuna. She's so attractive to people that they just kinda follow her wherever she leads them. Even Kirito followed her when she decided to form a guild back when all this started. Klein said she activated a sword skill using a kitchen knife."

I snort. In retrospect, that was kind of funny. Living it, not so much. "Heh, yeah, sounds like she's a real charismatic leader alright. Say, don't you have a familiar? I saw it a few times."

"Yes! His name's Pina. He's a great dragon, but on most floors he shrinks to about three feet long. I lived on floor thirteen until I met Kirito, and on floor thirteen dragons are big enough to ride!"

"Wow." I say. "What was it like growing up with dragons?"

"It was great! I could go anywhere I wanted without having to walk very far, and flying is a great feeling. I once went all the way to the edge of the floor and looked down, and it's really scary out there. There's a lot of clouds and nothing else. Grandpa says that there's nothing below the clouds, but Dad says there has to be something."

"What do you think?"

Silica places her chin in her hand. "I don't know. I want to look someday when I'm done with helping Asuna get to the top of the castle."

Good luck with that, because if Heathcliff's to be believed, this world will end when we clear the game.

Hmm. 'If Heathcliff is to be believed.' That's a sentence to consider. If only I knew how much he knows about me, I could figure what that hell was the truth around here.

"Sounds like fun. Can I go with you? I never thought of looking under the clouds before. Actually, I've never been anywhere near the edge before."

Silica stands up and twirls in place, almost bursting with joy. "Of course! I'll let you ride Pina with me, and we'll see if there's anything under the clouds. Here," She holds out her hand, pinky finger extended. "Promise that once we finish this mission, we'll go flying."

I smile and hook my pinky in hers. "I promise. Heck, I'll go flying with you before that if we get the chance."

Silica beams and releases my finger. "Oh, no dying, okay? You promised, so if you die you'll break the promise, and you'll be tormented for a thousand years!"

"Eh… I don't remember that part."

"I made it up, it sounds better than a thousand needles anyway."

Maybe for you, but if I break the promise, I'd take eating a thousand needles over a thousand years of anything.

"Anyway, goodnight!" Silica says. She runs away before I can even open my mouth to respond.

"Yeah. Night." I flop back down and stare back at the stars.

"I apologize for my actions earlier."

I turn my head the other way to find a stony faced Yui. She's probably back in her regular personality now.

"No problem. What was that anyway?"

"Sinon has been programmed to be very affectionate with those she likes. I am still attempting to find where this behavior is located so that it may be modified into a more socially acceptable action. I have however found two folders full of actions I have yet to reference in normal conversation. The descriptions are vague enough to require testing, but I have no way to do so effectively. I may ask for assistance in the future. For now, I will return to Sinon and keep up my disguise for a while longer."

"Wait, I had something I wanted to ask you earlier." I frown in concentration. "Oh yeah, why are you so tired as Sinon?"

Yui frowns. "The average player requires eight to ten hours of sleep a night. I took my sleep during a time where I was the least needed, and thus enabled me to maintain Sinon's outwards operational effectiveness without letting any crucial data pass by. If you were not aware, I was still collecting information at that time, if not responding to it."

I nod. "That makes sense. Just remember what you've told to who and don't get it mixed up." I think for a second. "That includes not referencing Kirito while in Sinon mode."

Yui nods. "I need to modify some of the data that pertains to how long I have interacted with various entities. That is the main reason for Sinon's actions."

"Out of idle curiosity, how much control do you have over your actions while Sinon is activated?"

"Almost none. I have limited decision making power, but it is similar to trying to convince a player to do what I want them to. The more control I attempt to exert, the less effective it is, so I must choose certain moments to make decisions that override Sinon's."

I frown. "That sounds frustrating. How's the re-purposing project coming?"

"It isn't. I need to utilize time without Sinon active, and that seems to be less than forthcoming. You will probably have to deal with Sinon's advances for a day or two at the current rate."

I grimace. "If Asuna doesn't kill me first. I still don't understand why that is either. It's been too short of a time for her to grow feelings for me, so I don't think it is jealousy, but it sure plays out that way."

Yui turns and sits down on the edge of my sleeping mat, facing outwards. "I believe he has significant emotional attachment to me, and Sinon's actions made her feel less needed."

"Ah."

"I am going to activate Sinon again. Please watch over my form as I transfer."

Once again, her form locks up into a stony state.

Now's my chance. I open my messages window, type as fast as I can, and at the first sign of movement from Yui, I send the message.

Yui yawns. "I am going to go talk to Asuna before I turn in for the night."

I nod and flop backwards. "Don't worry about me. I'll still be here when you get back."

I close my eyes and listen to her footsteps as she walks away.

_Ping._

I crack my eyes open to find x has responded. I open the letter and read.

"Klutz,

"Don't worry about me, I took all available security measures. Interestingly, there's a flag on the message system that prohibits admins from reading messages, which is a very problematic mechanic to include in the game, so I have to question its legitimacy, but I have tested it on Yui and she is unable to read messages flagged this way. I sent her a direct message and it's still there in her inbox from what I can tell, as if she couldn't see it.

"In any case, you can send messages to me in the same way. I've triggered the flag on all outbound messages from you to me. Just try not to let Yui see you typing, because then she will figure out something is up.

"x"

Oh, good. That's honestly a lot off my mind.

I fall back on to the sleeping mat for the last time, and finally drift off into peaceful slumber.

* * *

(Asuna's Perspective)

"Mama."

I look over at Yui, standing still in the doorway.

"Yes, Yui?" I ask. "Did something happen?"

She nods. "It is most disturbing."

"Does it involve Klutz?"

Yui nods. "He has recently been exhibiting strange behavior at odd times. I am unable to find the source of these irregularities, which is where the problem lies."

I frown. As far as I could tell, Yui knows everything. For her to be perplexed, something very odd has to have occurred. "Yui, are you telling me that something happened, but you don't know what?"

Yui blinks. "That is correct. Klutz ha on several occasions mimed sending and receiving messages. The latest attempt was just before I arrived here. He waited to take advantage of a fault in my programming. Before sending this invisible message, which is the only reason I am bringing to your attention. As far as the message subsystem is concerned, he has sent nothing suspicious, but I find no record of anything being sent."

"That's… disturbing. Is he not actually sending anything, and just a bit touched in the head?"

"While that remains a possibility, it does not fit in with Klutz's behavior patterns in the slightest. Next time he attempts to send a message while in front of me, I will record his finger movement, match them to the keyboard and attempt to parse the relevant data."

"The key words there are in front of you, Yui. He could be sending another message right now."

Yui shakes her head. "He is currently sleeping. I will know when he wakes up."

I smile. "Of course you will. Alright, as long as you feel you have control of the situation. How's the new personality working out?"

"It overrides to many of my functions to be declared an improvement, but hopefully I will have access to only the most essential functions without activating the program sooner rather than later. I have already appropriated a portion of Sinon's voice code, and can speak in her mannerisms." Yui turns to face the direction she had come from. "I will probably decode the physical moments in about four hours of downtime, thought that seems unlikely to occur at this time."

I nod. "Sorry to dump watching Klutz on you. I mean, you did ask for it, but-"

"Sinon asked for it. I was merely a bystander in that affair, though the outcome is much the same as it would be if I had not had Sinon's influence on events."

Ah, it's nice to have the old Yui back. Sort of. It's kinda like being talked down to be a ten year old. "How does that work? You not being in control?"

Yui turns back to me. "Do you ever have a small voice in the back of your head that tells you what to do in tough situations? I am that voice in this case, and the substitute personality Sinon presents takes over ninety five percent of my functions. She still uses my stored information, and the goals she intends to accomplish mostly coincide with mine. I can suggest courses of action but there is never a guarantee that my solution will be chosen as the one to implement."

"So…" This is going to be awkward. "When you were cuddling with Klutz before-"

"That was entirely Sinon's programming. I am working on a way to deactivate that particular program as well, though it is a lesser priority."

"Oh, good. Just make sure not to get in over your head with him."

Yui pauses for a moment, then gives her typical curt nod and fades back into the darkness.

I sit down on my bedroll. Tomorrow's going to be a pain, isn't it.

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

The teleportation sound rings in our ears, signaling our arrival. Despite their cost, Asuna had given each of us a teleport crystal with which to head to floor 49. Personally, I was wondering if she knows just how dangerous I could be if I decided to go report to Heathcliff now. It wasn't like she could stop me, since once inside a city zone, any city zone, I would be able to safely head to Heathcliff.

It's not like I'm a red player anymore.

I stare at the crystal in my hands. I could go and see how the Moonlit Black Cats are doing. I could go see mom and dad, not that they'd recognize me. I could get Heathcliff and end this charade.

"Klutz?" Klein pokes me with his index finger.

I sigh. "Yeah?"

"It's your turn to go through."

I nod and turn back towards the gate that lies in front of us. It's not any special gate, and has nothing to do with teleportation, but Asuna had thought is symbolic enough to drag us an extra mile out of our way to teleport in front of it.

I take a deep breath. I'm not looking forward to seeing the place I died, but it looks like I have little choice. I hold the crystal in front of me and call out the name of the floor.

"Teleport: Katamaran village!"

White lights swirl around me, obscuring my view of the surrounds and replacing them with the visuals of floor 49.

I had forgotten this. The tower in the center of the smallish island, surrounded by boats that form a city. Unlike last time, there is no fog obscuring the farther areas, and from the top of the tower, I can see the edge of the floor, dotted here and there with boats almost invisible in the distance and islands around the edge of the floor.

If I wasn't being hunted, I would totally find a place to live here. It looks nice and peaceful.

It would be nice and peaceful, but as the winds shift, I hear muffled crying. I turn around to see Asuna is sitting down, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her, face buried.

I walk over slowly and crouch down, unsure what to do. The choice is quickly taken out of my hands.

She springs at me and grabs me in an embrace and starts crying. I let her, a little bewildered. I slowly bring my hands back around and rest them on her back.

We stay like this for a few moments, me gently rocking back and forth in a comforting manner.

Finally she lets go and wipes her eyes. "I-I'm sorry. I'm just a bit…" She gestures vaguely over the edge of the tower. "Kirito died over there. I can't…" Her eyes squeeze shut.

I put a hand on her shoulder. "I can't pretend to sympathize. Is there anything I can do?"

She shakes her head. "I need to go down there and get his equipment. I saw it down there. I don't know why it hasn't been taken yet, but I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted it to just lie there."

I nod. "Do you want me to go get it? You can rest and recover up here for a bit."

She nods. I give her shoulder a parting squeeze just as Klein falls out of the teleporter. He looks around in confusion for a second before recognizing his surroundings. I wave a I climb down.

He quickly disappears out of sight as I descend the winding staircase along the inside edge of the tall object. On the long way down, I involuntarily send a chill down my spine. I'm going to visit the place where I died. That sounds horrible.

Finally at the bottom, I open the door of the tower and head towards a large pile of stuff. It's all the items Kirito had on his person when he died. When I died. I shake my head. Dwelling on that isn't a good idea. It probably will never be.

I walk up to the pile which is emitting a strange, low hum. I can feel my hair pricking as I arrive within ten feet of the pile.

"AH!"

I look behind and up at the red and white striped tower as a series of thumps, getting louder then softer then louder again comes from the windows. I track the sound as it winds its way down the staircase and finally finishes at the foot of the staircase, still visible through the open door.

Yui looks up from her upside down position on the ground and groans. "Ouch."

I smile. "Try not to kill yourself." I admonish playfully.

She groans again.

I turn back to the pile and reach out to grab the sword on top.

"Klutz, don't, its trap-"

I lose consciousness as my brain is shocked into darkness.

* * *

Okay, spoilers for the books are present after this point.

You've been warned.

The Alicization arc introduces a lot more background into the series, and adds clarification to a lot of things. For instance, Yui is considered to be little more than an advanced Siri, a "Top down AI." In my story, She's a true AI, one where she can think and learn things as she goes along. As far as fluctlights go… I really don't like fluctlights. It's technobabble, pure and simple. I know Reki Kawahara had to make up something to make his story make sense, but this seems a bit off to me. In the end, it's not my intellectual property, so I'll accept it as a slightly different universe.

Asuna is pretty much outright stated to be very good at figuring things out in the second alicization book, but there wasn't much evidence of that when I read the books, except for the detective bit in the SAO arc. I wonder if I missed it or if this is an informed ability that she didn't have much time to demonstrate due to the nature of the series.

Lastly, I wanted to point out that in the books, there is a lot more information than the anime can possibly convey. If you enjoyed the anime (If you're reading this and didn't, what are you doing?) I would seriously go check them out.

Until next time.


	14. Chapter 14: Final Preparations

(Kirito's Perspective)

"We're going to clear all the floors at once!"

Silence. I look around at the others to find either states of shock or, in Klein's case, resignation.

"B-but how is that possible?" Lizbeth splutters.

Klein sighs deeply. "It's not what you guys are thinking. I told her not to go with the dramatic line, but noooo." He stands up. "Have fun explaining it, Asuna. I'm going to go lie down for a while."

All eyes turn back to our leader, who suddenly looks a bit nervous. "Oh, uh, well I made a plan." Her hands clench and unclench restlessly. "See, this plan is a lot riskier than it sounds. Um… It basically boils down to us going and clearing each floor, but not activating it."

"Huh?" Silica raises her hand. "I don't get it!"

Asuna smiles at the youngest member of the group. "On each floor, there's a switch or a button that allows each floor to be open to teleportation. So far, Kirito has activated all 35 or so switches he's come across. In my plan, we're going to purposely avoid flipping them until the very end."

Klein, obviously still listening, calls from his sleeping mat about twenty feet away. "Don't forget to tell them the complications!"

Asuna sighs. "Yes, Klein. I was about to do that. Klein, Yui and I were all discussing this when we thought of something. So far, no floor has been cleared without activating the teleport for the one below it. There's a chance that refusing to flip the switch will make it impossible to clear the floor. Our main reason for considering this is that Kirito continued to open the new floors as he got to them."

Huh. I didn't think of that. If this plan works… I might've gone all the way to the top without dying.

Asuna continues. "So, it's going to be a gamble on whether or not we can make it. I do have a solution though."

She opens her inventory and selects an item, which materializes in her outstretched palm. It looks a bit like an ornamental temple, mostly a translucent blue with red crystal fused in odd places.

"This is a corridor crystal. It's used by setting a position by breaking off the red parts where you want the teleport to go, traveling elsewhere, and using the blue portion. It allows multiple people to go through at once, so it's unlike a regular teleport crystal. Also, if you return to the spot without using the crystal you can reattach the red bits and reset the endpoint, so we can keep them if the plan succeeds."

I remember the Army used one of those on me when I became a red player.

Lizbeth gestures and Asuna hands the pink haired girl the crystal. "I've heard of these, but aren't they ridiculously expensive?"

Asuna nods. "Leader- Heathcliff had a few of them in the guild vault for who-knows-what. I decided that we could use them more than anyone in the KoB could."

Lizbeth hands the crystal over and Asuna puts it back in her inventory, safe from accidental shattering. Asuna clears her throat. "Yeah. Um, we're going to move out as soon as the sun comes up. We'll head to the topmost level we can access currently, floor forty nine. Then we'll start searching for the dungeon. As far as I can tell from when we were up there, it's not going to be hard; it looks like an entire floor made of water. From there, we defeat the final boss and go to the next floor, fifty, which we will not activate. We'll set up the corridor's warp point and then go and finish floor 50. If we can progress without problems, then we'll continue until we get all the way to the top. Otherwise, we go back to the way Kirito did things."

Kuradeel crosses his arms. "If we can't progress without flipping the switches, what are we going to do? As in, how are we going to avoid getting killed when we have to flip the switches?"

Asuna hesitates, and Klein again chimes in. "We can just use the corridors. Asuna has ten of them, and in an emergency we can warp to a safer place." He rolls over on his mat, almost invisible in the darkness. "I wish we had a few more of the crystals, maybe forty or so."

"Don't we all?" I mutter.

Asuna starts talking to Kuradeel and Silica, Lizbeth wanders off in Klein's direction, and I try to stand up, only to remember my personal space invader.

On my lap, Yui shifts around, twisting her torso around. I look down at her sleeping form. Wasn't sleeping in people's laps reserved for couples and siblings? I mean, yeah, Yui's cute, but she's also about ten… or, rather she's one hundred and six. Of course, she looks like she's sixteen...

She's also _fake._

She hums deep in her throat as she sleeps. I smile slightly at her sleeping face. There's still a lot I don't know about her. Does she have emotions? She's never shown any in her normal form, but with this new software, she was acting all sorts of human. If she does and just never felt the need to display them, then maybe this programming s just forcing her inner self out into the world. On the other hand, Yui herself stated he was an adapting program, and on top of that was trying to adapt the new program into herself completely. Maybe she doesn't have emotions, but with the new code is just responding how it was programmed to respond to emotions. Yui's obviously excellent at reading emotional states, and could easily display the correct one for a situation without too much trouble.

I wonder if I could tell between the two. I mean, technically, they're functionally identical. The only difference is one Yui has her own feelings, and the other she's responding to outside emotions. Of course, if you want to get philosophical, isn't that what we all do? I respond to everyone else's emotions and base how I react off of their moods. If Yui is doing that, is that the same as her having her emotions?

I think about it for a few minutes before coming to a solution to my thoughts. In only one scenario would I be able to tell whether Yui actually has emotions or is just responding. It has to be an argument with her. If I can get her to disagree with me about something, that will prove she can feel strongly enough about something to stop helping us wholeheartedly, I can pretty much say at that point that Yui truly feel emotions.

I let my brain return to my reality to find my right hand had decided to tangle itself in the blue hair while I was thinking. Yui's new teal eyes are half lidded, and the open fully as I gently try to untangle the mess I made of her hair and my hand.

She yawns before speaking. "Did Asuna explain everything?"

"I think so." I finally extract my hand, but her hair is still a snarled knot. "We're going to have one hell of a time, aren't we?"

"Yep." Yui says. "I can't wait. I can go and fight like you used to, and maybe even be remembered for my contribution."

My smile freezes on my face. I know Yui has less control of what she was saying with Sinon active, but referencing Kirito when talking about Klutz is a large risk.

"Oy, maybe you don't talk about that in front of others?" I admonish softly.

"Talk about what?"

My head jerks up to find Asuna looking at me with a mixture of curiosity at my words and disgust presumably from Yui's head still being in my lap. I gently tip Yui upright and she yawns yet again. Maybe not sleeping for over a hundred years is still catching up to her.

"Er, nothing. Just chatting with Yui here."

Asuna slowly nods, disbelief written plainly across her face. "Right. Well, I forgot I had something very important to do. How many contacts do you have?"

I automatically reach out my right arm to open my menu, but Asuna's rapier is at my throat before I fully extend my arm. Damn her for increasing her speed to such absurd levels.

"I need to check, okay?" I grumble. "Just watch, I'm not gonna send out any messages or anything."

"Good. Despite your compliant attitude, you're still close enough to Heathcliff to make me wary." Kuradeel steps out from behind Asuna. "In fact didn't you say you can here as a spy?"

I raise both my hands. "Whoa. I know that, but he approached all the Black Cats as a guild. I just happen to be willing to work for you honestly just as much as for him deceitfully."

Kuradeel's eyes light up for the first time… actually, this is the first time I've ever seen him even come close to smiling. "Asuna, I have an idea!"

Asuna turns to him, the point of the rapier slightly lifting off my throat. "Really?"

Kuradeel beams. "Yes! We can have him send false information back to Heathcliff, with just enough truth in it to make it hard for him to track us. Since we hauled him off as a captive, we can say we released him, have him mention where we are currently, and then move out. Heathcliff will be on our heels, but we can stay a few steps ahead of him easily. Since he's been treated like an enemy, any time he sends off a completely wrong message, he can write it off to Heathcliff as him being forced to misinform him."

Asuna frowns. "That's very problematic in its own right. If we let him continue to communicate with the others in his guild, there's a good change of him being able to betray us."

Kuradeel's left eyebrow lifts. "I'm impressed. I didn't think you would've thought about that."

Asuna blushes. "Well, I was bored, and that book you loaned me has made me kind of paranoid."

I didn't realize I was staring daggers at Kuradeel until Asuna looked back at me and let out a small 'eep' sound. I don't even know why-

"Well, the solution is to have him enable the ability for others to look over his shoulder at his menu. Then, he can't hide messages, their content, or anything else from us. Have Klein or someone watch him all the time, and if he acts suspicious we can have Yui deal with him." Kuradeel puts a smug smile on his face that made me want to smash his face in for some reason. I don't know. I'm just getting a very weird feeling from him.

Asuna considers this for a moment, then smiles. "Well, I think that's a good idea, but he's still going to have to lose his guild. Remember, you can track others in your guild in certain areas."

Ah, damn. Less than a full week, and already have to quit the Moonlit Black Cats. I slowly open my menu and upon not having my head removed, I press the leave guild button. I hesitate at the final warning, the words "Are you sure?" glaring at me like Sachi herself was pleading me not to go… first chance I get, I need to tell her that I'm alright.

I press the okay button. Asuna relaxes a bit as the small icon next to my health bar disappears. The pointy end of her sword drifts away from the skin over my throat.

Yui finally opens her eyes fully and looks around. "What did I miss?"

"I've been forced to leave my guild to avoid being tracked, and I've been assigned a bodyguard to keep me company."

Yui blinks. "Really? Who is it?"

Kuradeel coughs. "We haven't picked anyone yet-"

"I volunteer!" Yui waves her hand around like an excited ten year old.

Asuna glares at me again. I give her my best helpless expression, seeing as I have no control over Yui. "I guess I have no reason to say no." She grits out from between her teeth. "However, I will be watching you two."

I rub the back of my head. That would work out the best for both parties, seeing as Yui can search through my mail without having to try especially hard, can keep an eye on me from floors away, and on my end can give me reports when everyone else is gone. Yes, I'm starting to like this arrangement-

Wait, Yui has demonstrated that she can read mail I send, so that means she knows about x, and the way x doesn't trust her.

Though, if that's valid, then x just let himself be exposed to Heathcliff, which would have been a very stupid move on his part. So there must be something I'm missing. I'll have to think of a way to ask Yui without her catching on.

She turns to me, her teal eyes searching my soul, possibly literally. "Is something wrong?"

I shake my head and smile weakly. "It's… nothing that needs to be said here." I stretch my arms up and yawn. "Alright, so we're leaving first thing tomorrow? I'm going to get some sleep in then. See you all in the morning." I stand up, followed by Yui. I give her a sharp glance, but she misses its point and continues to follow me over to a spot I had decided to sleep in.

"Yui, find somewhere else to sleep." I point back to the campfire, outside hearing distance. "Asuna already is acting weird. I don't want to make her stand over me with her blade drawn."

"But I'm supposed to watch you to make sure you don't do anything suspicious." Yui pouts. "I can't do that if I'm far away from you."

I roll my eyes. "Of course you can. You said yourself that you can track me across floors."

Yui falls silent. I wait for an answer briefly before remembering that she supposedly has blocks in place to prevent her from spouting technical stuff.

"Oh, right, you can't talk about that." I place my head in my hands and try to think. I can't force her leave, seeing as I'm under watch and that would constitute rebellion, but… As far as I can tell, Yui has every intention of sleeping right next to me, something I am not comfortable with. I couldn't even use her true nature as a reason to avoid the issue because I'm not supposed to know about it-

Oh, that's why Yui can't leave. I'm not supposed to know that she can almost read my mind, and that letting me run down to the first floor wouldn't be far enough to get out from Yui's omnipresence.

A seed of doubt is insidious. My thoughts turn towards x's message. If Yui really is an enemy, then she knows entirely too much about us and what we are doing. She's also tied into the system in a way we can never be, which give's Heathcliff an even more unfair advantage over us. I look up to see the Blue haired Yui, once stock still when not engaging anything, now sway slightly and rock back and forth on her heels.

I would have to ask x somehow. Maybe while Yui is transferring between personalities.

In the meantime, I'm going to set up camp. I open my inventory and am surprised to be relieved when I didn't immediately feel metal at my neck. I pull out a sleeping bag and lie down on it, barely registering Yui mimicking my actions beside me. I look at the bottom of the next floor up, little pinpricks of light shining from what looks like a much larger distance than it actually can be.

I have no idea what I'm doing, really. I've had to keep so many things in my head recently, I feel like I'm going to burst.

I used to be Kirito, and only two people know it, x and Yui. I know x is more or less on my side, seeing as he resurrected me. I don't really know enough about him to say that he's a friend, but he's done nothing overtly out of my best interests so far. Yui is more complicated because while she seems to be on our side, she could just be being told to act that way. I suspect Heathcliff has at least some control over her, being part of his system, so trusting her completely is not a good idea. The problem is that everything she says has the weight of information behind it and can't be disregarded.

As for Asuna's group, they're trying to go to the top floor. I don't know why, if it's just to continue where I left off or if they each have their own reason for going up there I have no idea. I do know that if Asuna's plan works, we're going to be out of this sooner rather than later.

Speaking of which, Heathcliff said that outside there is nothing. Literally nothing. In the handbook's written notes, there was a mention of something called space that sounds awful, and I think that's what Heathcliff was talking about when he said there's nothing out there for us.

Just big, empty space.

Is it even worth trying to go to the top level? Being trapped in those jelly tubes for all eternity sounds a lot worse than the situation we're in now.

"Klutz? What's the matter?"

I open my blurry, tearing eyes to see the normally cheerful face of Silica looking down at me.

"Oh, hi there. Nothing too much. Just wondering if what I'm doing is the right thing to do."

Silica sits back, and I have to turn my head to see her outline against the stars. "Of course it is!"

"Really? How are you so sure of yourself?" I ask.

"Well…" Silica frowns. "It's like this. Heathcliff is lying to everyone, right?"

I nod. If nothing else, he has shown that that is true.

"Mom and Dad taught me that lying is bad. Since he's doing bad things, that means when we do the opposite and stop him, we're doing good things."

I smile a bit. "Is that how you see it?"

Silica beams. "Of course! If I didn't, why would I stay with these guys? I mean, Klein's creepy, Asuna's strict, Kuradeel's creepy, Lizbeth's crazy, and Yui's a pro- um, I mean, Yui's a pro with a bow. Which is creepy."

Despite myself I laugh. "Is that how you see them? Creepy, strict, creepy, crazy and creepy?"

Silica pouts. "Well, they are. Look at them, Kuradeel's always looking at Asuna, Asuna's always making someone do something, and Klein's drooling over some picture he hides whenever I walk towards him, Lizbeth throws things for no reason (usually at Klein though), and Yui is always spouting things that make no sense, even after she explains them three times." She crosses her arms and puffs out her cheeks. "You're the only normal guy here, and you've already been taken by Yui."

I really, really wanted to disagree with that last bit, but Sinon's personality sure wasn't helping matters. What did she think she was doing anyway?

"I wouldn't say taken, but she does seem to be coming after me for some reason." I smile weakly again. "Honestly, you're right, it's a bit creepy. I don't know anyone here that well yet, so her familiar attitude throws me a bit."

Silica flops over sideways in the grass. "It's something about Asuna. She's so attractive to people that they just kinda follow her wherever she leads them. Even Kirito followed her when she decided to form a guild back when all this started. Klein said she activated a sword skill using a kitchen knife."

I snort. In retrospect, that was kind of funny. Living it, not so much. "Heh, yeah, sounds like she's a real charismatic leader alright. Say, don't you have a familiar? I saw it a few times."

"Yes! His name's Pina. He's a great dragon, but on most floors he shrinks to about three feet long. I lived on floor thirteen until I met Kirito, and on floor thirteen dragons are big enough to ride!"

"Wow." I say. "What was it like growing up with dragons?"

"It was great! I could go anywhere I wanted without having to walk very far, and flying is a great feeling. I once went all the way to the edge of the floor and looked down, and it's really scary out there. There's a lot of clouds and nothing else. Grandpa says that there's nothing below the clouds, but Dad says there has to be something."

"What do you think?"

Silica places her chin in her hand. "I don't know. I want to look someday when I'm done with helping Asuna get to the top of the castle."

Good luck with that, because if Heathcliff's to be believed, this world will end when we clear the game.

Hmm. 'If Heathcliff is to be believed.' That's a sentence to consider. If only I knew how much he knows about me, I could figure what that hell was the truth around here.

"Sounds like fun. Can I go with you? I never thought of looking under the clouds before. Actually, I've never been anywhere near the edge before."

Silica stands up and twirls in place, almost bursting with joy. "Of course! I'll let you ride Pina with me, and we'll see if there's anything under the clouds. Here," She holds out her hand, pinky finger extended. "Promise that once we finish this mission, we'll go flying."

I smile and hook my pinky in hers. "I promise. Heck, I'll go flying with you before that if we get the chance."

Silica beams and releases my finger. "Oh, no dying, okay? You promised, so if you die you'll break the promise, and you'll be tormented for a thousand years!"

"Eh… I don't remember that part."

"I made it up, it sounds better than a thousand needles anyway."

Maybe for you, but if I break the promise, I'd take eating a thousand needles over a thousand years of anything.

"Anyway, goodnight!" Silica says. She runs away before I can even open my mouth to respond.

"Yeah. Night." I flop back down and stare back at the stars.

"I apologize for my actions earlier."

I turn my head the other way to find a stony faced Yui. She's probably back in her regular personality now.

"No problem. What was that anyway?"

"Sinon has been programmed to be very affectionate with those she likes. I am still attempting to find where this behavior is located so that it may be modified into a more socially acceptable action. I have however found two folders full of actions I have yet to reference in normal conversation. The descriptions are vague enough to require testing, but I have no way to do so effectively. I may ask for assistance in the future. For now, I will return to Sinon and keep up my disguise for a while longer."

"Wait, I had something I wanted to ask you earlier." I frown in concentration. "Oh yeah, why are you so tired as Sinon?"

Yui frowns. "The average player requires eight to ten hours of sleep a night. I took my sleep during a time where I was the least needed, and thus enabled me to maintain Sinon's outwards operational effectiveness without letting any crucial data pass by. If you were not aware, I was still collecting information at that time, if not responding to it."

I nod. "That makes sense. Just remember what you've told to who and don't get it mixed up." I think for a second. "That includes not referencing Kirito while in Sinon mode."

Yui nods. "I need to modify some of the data that pertains to how long I have interacted with various entities. That is the main reason for Sinon's actions."

"Out of idle curiosity, how much control do you have over your actions while Sinon is activated?"

"Almost none. I have limited decision making power, but it is similar to trying to convince a player to do what I want them to. The more control I attempt to exert, the less effective it is, so I must choose certain moments to make decisions that override Sinon's."

I frown. "That sounds frustrating. How's the re-purposing project coming?"

"It isn't. I need to utilize time without Sinon active, and that seems to be less than forthcoming. You will probably have to deal with Sinon's advances for a day or two at the current rate."

I grimace. "If Asuna doesn't kill me first. I still don't understand why that is either. It's been too short of a time for her to grow feelings for me, so I don't think it is jealousy, but it sure plays out that way."

Yui turns and sits down on the edge of my sleeping mat, facing outwards. "I believe he has significant emotional attachment to me, and Sinon's actions made her feel less needed."

"Ah."

"I am going to activate Sinon again. Please watch over my form as I transfer."

Once again, her form locks up into a stony state.

Now's my chance. I open my messages window, type as fast as I can, and at the first sign of movement from Yui, I send the message.

Yui yawns. "I am going to go talk to Asuna before I turn in for the night."

I nod and flop backwards. "Don't worry about me. I'll still be here when you get back."

I close my eyes and listen to her footsteps as she walks away.

_Ping._

I crack my eyes open to find x has responded. I open the letter and read.

"Klutz,

"Don't worry about me; I took all available security measures. Interestingly, there's a flag on the message system that prohibits admins from reading messages, which is a very problematic mechanic to include in the game, so I have to question its legitimacy, but I have tested it on Yui and she is unable to read messages flagged this way. I sent her a direct message and it's still there in her inbox from what I can tell, as if she couldn't see it.

"In any case, you can send messages to me in the same way. I've triggered the flag on all outbound messages from you to me. Just try not to let Yui see you typing, because then she will figure out something is up.

"x"

Oh, good. That's honestly a lot off my mind.

I fall back on to the sleeping mat for the last time, and finally drift off into peaceful slumber.

* * *

(Asuna's Perspective)

"Mama."

I look over at Yui, standing still in the doorway.

"Yes, Yui?" I ask. "Did something happen?"

She nods. "It is most disturbing."

"Does it involve Klutz?"

Yui nods. "He has recently been exhibiting strange behavior at odd times. I am unable to find the source of these irregularities, which is where the problem lies."

I frown. As far as I could tell, Yui knows everything. For her to be perplexed, something very odd has to have occurred. "Yui, are you telling me that something happened, but you don't know what?"

Yui blinks. "That is correct. Klutz ha on several occasions mimed sending and receiving messages. The latest attempt was just before I arrived here. He waited to take advantage of a fault in my programming. Before sending this invisible message, which is the only reason I am bringing to your attention. As far as the message subsystem is concerned, he has sent nothing suspicious, but I find no record of anything being sent."

"That's… disturbing. Is he not actually sending anything, and just a bit touched in the head?"

"While that remains a possibility, it does not fit in with Klutz's behavior patterns in the slightest. Next time he attempts to send a message while in front of me, I will record his finger movement, match them to the keyboard and attempt to parse the relevant data."

"The key words there are in front of you, Yui. He could be sending another message right now."

Yui shakes her head. "He is currently sleeping. I will know when he wakes up."

I smile. "Of course you will. Alright, as long as you feel you have control of the situation. How's the new personality working out?"

"It overrides to many of my functions to be declared an improvement, but hopefully I will have access to only the most essential functions without activating the program sooner rather than later. I have already appropriated a portion of Sinon's voice code, and can speak in her mannerisms." Yui turns to face the direction she had come from. "I will probably decode the physical moments in about four hours of downtime, thought that seems unlikely to occur at this time."

I nod. "Sorry to dump watching Klutz on you. I mean, you did ask for it, but-"

"Sinon asked for it. I was merely a bystander in that affair, though the outcome is much the same as it would be if I had not had Sinon's influence on events."

Ah, it's nice to have the old Yui back. Sort of. It's kinda like being talked down to be a ten year old. "How does that work? You not being in control?"

Yui turns back to me. "Do you ever have a small voice in the back of your head that tells you what to do in tough situations? I am that voice in this case, and the substitute personality Sinon presents takes over ninety five percent of my functions. She still uses my stored information, and the goals she intends to accomplish mostly coincide with mine. I can suggest courses of action but there is never a guarantee that my solution will be chosen as the one to implement."

"So…" This is going to be awkward. "When you were cuddling with Klutz before-"

"That was entirely Sinon's programming. I am working on a way to deactivate that particular program as well, though it is a lesser priority."

"Oh, good. Just make sure not to get in over your head with him."

Yui pauses for a moment, then gives her typical curt nod and fades back into the darkness.

I sit down on my bedroll. Tomorrow's going to be a pain, isn't it.

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

The teleportation sound rings in our ears, signaling our arrival. Despite their cost, Asuna had given each of us a teleport crystal with which to head to floor 49. Personally, I was wondering if she knows just how dangerous I could be if I decided to go report to Heathcliff now. It wasn't like she could stop me, since once inside a city zone, any city zone, I would be able to safely head to Heathcliff.

It's not like I'm a red player anymore.

I stare at the crystal in my hands. I could go and see how the Moonlit Black Cats are doing. I could go see mom and dad, not that they'd recognize me. I could get Heathcliff and end this charade.

"Klutz?" Klein pokes me with his index finger.

I sigh. "Yeah?"

"It's your turn to go through."

I nod and turn back towards the gate that lies in front of us. It's not any special gate, and has nothing to do with teleportation, but Asuna had thought is symbolic enough to drag us an extra mile out of our way to teleport in front of it.

I take a deep breath. I'm not looking forward to seeing the place I died, but it looks like I have little choice. I hold the crystal in front of me and call out the name of the floor.

"Teleport: Katamaran village!"

White lights swirl around me, obscuring my view of the surrounds and replacing them with the visuals of floor 49.

I had forgotten this. The tower in the center of the smallish island, surrounded by boats that form a city. Unlike last time, there is no fog obscuring the farther areas, and from the top of the tower, I can see the edge of the floor, dotted here and there with boats almost invisible in the distance and islands around the edge of the floor.

If I wasn't being hunted, I would totally find a place to live here. It looks nice and peaceful.

It would be nice and peaceful, but as the winds shift, I hear muffled crying. I turn around to see Asuna is sitting down, her knees pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around her, face buried.

I walk over slowly and crouch down, unsure what to do. The choice is quickly taken out of my hands.

She springs at me and grabs me in an embrace and starts crying. I let her, a little bewildered. I slowly bring my hands back around and rest them on her back.

We stay like this for a few moments, me gently rocking back and forth in a comforting manner.

Finally she lets go and wipes her eyes. "I-I'm sorry. I'm just a bit…" She gestures vaguely over the edge of the tower. "Kirito died over there. I can't…" Her eyes squeeze shut.

I put a hand on her shoulder. "I can't pretend to sympathize. Is there anything I can do?"

She shakes her head. "I need to go down there and get his equipment. I saw it down there. I don't know why it hasn't been taken yet, but I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted it to just lie there."

I nod. "Do you want me to go get it? You can rest and recover up here for a bit."

She nods. I give her shoulder a parting squeeze just as Klein falls out of the teleporter. He looks around in confusion for a second before recognizing his surroundings. I wave as I climb down.

He quickly disappears out of sight as I descend the winding staircase along the inside edge of the tall object. On the long way down, I involuntarily send a chill down my spine. I'm going to visit the place where I died. That sounds horrible.

Finally at the bottom, I open the door of the tower and head towards a large pile of stuff. It's all the items Kirito had on his person when he died. When I died. I shake my head. Dwelling on that isn't a good idea. It probably will never be.

I walk up to the pile which is emitting a strange, low hum. I can feel my hair pricking as I arrive within ten feet of the pile.

"AH!"

I look behind and up at the red and white striped tower as a series of thumps, getting louder then softer then louder again comes from the windows. I track the sound as it winds its way down the staircase and finally finishes at the foot of the staircase, still visible through the open door.

Yui looks up from her upside down position on the ground and groans. "Ouch."

I smile. "Try not to kill yourself." I admonish playfully.

She groans again.

I turn back to the pile and reach out to grab the sword on top.

"Klutz, don't, its trap-"

I lose consciousness as my brain is shocked into darkness.

* * *

Okay, spoilers for the books are present after this point.

You've been warned.

The Alicization arc introduces a lot more background into the series, and adds clarification to a lot of things. For instance, Yui is considered to be little more than an advanced Siri, a "Top down AI." In my story, she's a true AI, one where she can think and learn things as she goes along. As far as fluctlights go… I really don't like fluctlights. It's technobabble, pure and simple. I know Reki Kawahara had to make up something to make his story make sense, but this seems a bit off to me. In the end, it's not my intellectual property, so I'll accept it as a slightly different universe.

Asuna is pretty much outright stated to be very good at figuring things out in the second alicization book, but there wasn't much evidence of that when I read the books, except for the detective bit in the SAO arc. I wonder if I missed it or if this is an informed ability that she didn't have much time to demonstrate due to the nature of the series.

Lastly, I wanted to point out that in the books, there is a lot more information than the anime can possibly convey. If you enjoyed the anime (If you're reading this and didn't, what are you doing?) I would seriously go check them out.

Until next time.


	15. Chapter 15: Drowning

I wake up to an unfamiliar ceiling, which is in itself is a regular enough occurrence that it hardly fazes me.

Yui looms over me. "Finally awake. I'm going to go tell Asuna, OK?"

She leaves before I can unglue my tongue from the roof of my mouth. What happened? I was trying to get those weapons from the pile of items I had dropped as Kirito, when I got hit with a large surge of power.

Yui had said it was a trap. I didn't react fast enough, but she did. Next time she falls down a flight of stairs, see how she is doing _before_ touching the buzzing object.

I take a moment to look at my surroundings, such as they are. Above me, wooden planking with a small lantern hanging from the ceiling. To the sides, more planks, with a doorway out to my left. The right wall is curved inwards slightly. As I watch, the lantern changes it's angle with the floor, turning back and forth. I couldn't feel it, but it seems to fit the rocking motion of a boat.

Asuna comes through the doorway. "How are you feeling?"

I shrug. "I'm fine. I just need to learn not to touch things without checking them first."

Asuna chuckles. "Yes, that sounds about right."

"Where are we right now?" I ask. "I mean, I know I'm on a boat, but I don't know where that boat is."

"We're about a hundred feet from where you were knocked out. Yui said that you deactivated the shield surrounding those objects by touching them, and also triggered an alarm of some sort. We've been hiding in these ships for the moment, waiting for everyone outside to go back." She chuckles. "This boat doesn't have a proper entrance. It's sealed by a magical phrase that Yui knows, so we're safe here until the go."

I sit up, still feeling like I was missing a good chunk of my hit points, but assured that I wasn't by the number under my HP bar. "Did you get the stuff?"

Asuna nods, her eyes starting to glaze over. After a second, I realize she was about to break down again, so I place my hand on her shoulder. She sighs deeply, calming herself a bit. "Yes, we did. Kirito had some pretty good gear on him. Yui suggested that we give most of it to you, since you're still a few levels behind us."

I open my mouth to ask her level, but that's rude. Instead, I got for something that is very tactless, in retrospect. "What kind of items and I getting?"

Asuna thankfully didn't notice my poor wording or just ignored me. She opens her menu and start materializing weapons. I watch in awe as weapons I remembered poured out. Black Ice, Thief, The gem sword (called Glitterdrain) and the fire and ice swords. My old illusory cloak. Even the boots.

"Wow, look at all this." I look up at her. "Are you sure I can have this?"

She nods. "Kirito wouldn't want me to keep them as memento, he would want me to fight with them, but I'm no good with heavy swords. You're good with them, right?"

I nod. "Both single and double handed swords." I lift up Black Ice. It has barely any durability left, but it's still there. Similarly, Thief is in a state of disrepair. These four swords and Glitterdust, useless hunk of metal that it was, had seen me through thick and thin. I can't wait to get back to using them.

Asuna's face is plainly showing her wrapped up in nostalgia. I wait in silence, inspecting the other items, inspecting their durability and checking how much it would cost to repair them. I had enough to pay Lizbeth to repair them, but it would bankrupt me. Oh well, I need the sword more than the money at this moment.

Asuna snaps out of her reverie before long. "Alright, I'm going to take these to Lizbeth. You'll get them when they're repaired." She scoops up the weapons and stands up. "If you need anything, just holler. We're down the hall normally, though Lizbeth found a forge a bit away. She says she's safe for the moment, but the people Heathcliff hired to track us are all red players."

I nod. "Thanks. Er, wait a sec." I open my menu, something that makes Asuna bristle, but I ignore it. I pull out a sum of money and toss it to Asuna. "Give this to Lizbeth. Payment for working on those swords."

Asuna smirks slightly. "Yeah, I doubt she'll take it, but I'll try. Try to get some rest."

She exits before I can say anything more.

Klein walks in directly after, obviously waiting for Asuna to leave. "So, you just got an upgrade, huh?"

I smile. "Yeah. Was that really Kirito's stuff?"

Klein nods. "He was using those swords when he fought Heathcliff. It was an impressive battle to say the least. I don't think anyone present will forget it. Especially Asuna."

I frown. "Was she there?"

Klein points to the tower in the distance. "We were all up there watching, but only Asuna was watching in the end. She wanted to make sure Heathcliff didn't see anyone that he didn't already know had betrayed him, not that she hesitated to drag us into hiding the next day."

I'm stunned. It takes me a moment to find my tongue. "You all were watching?"

He nods. "We were trying to get to Kirito and join up with him. See, we just met Yui and-"

He bites his tongue.

I look at him quizzically, or the best approximation I can do.

"I'm not supposed to tell you this… Yui has connections to Heathcliff. She was the one who convinced us the Kirito was right in thinking that there's an outside world. We made our resolve to help him the day he died, all of five minutes before Heathcliff dealt the final blow." He snorts derisively. "To be honest, Kirito was going crazy at the end, but that was because he was all alone. If we had been there, then we would've helped that."

I look down at the sheet covering the lower half of my body. "I'm his replacement, right?" I grip the fabric tightly.

Klein shakes his head. "Nobody expects you to be the next Kirito. We want you to be a swordsman, one good enough to not die and not get anyone else killed. If you can do that, then you'll be fine."

I laugh. "Yeah, that sounds good."

Klein stands up and stretches. "I'm going to send Liz a message and see if the red players are gone. If they are, I'll be gone for a time. If you need me… I'm on your friends list, right?"

I shake my head. "Only got Sachi and the other Black Cats on there. Deleted everyone else."

Klein quickly sends me a friend invite and I accept. He waves and exits the door.

I sit in the bed for a few more minutes before flopping backwards. Wood paneling is only slightly more interesting than cracks in the ceiling.

I wonder when Yui is getting back.

With that thought, I drift off to sleep.

* * *

It is a few hours later when I next open my eyes. I slide out of bed and put on some clothes I had in my inventory and step outside.

Asuna and Lizbeth look up from a map on the table. Asuna smiles. "Welcome! You're finally back awake!"

I glance at the clock in the corner of my screen. Eight hours since I last woke up. Damn. "Yeah, I'm up. What're we doing here?" I gesture to the map.

Asuna taps the center of the piece of paper. "We're currently here, at the lighthouse. In this direction is the tower, and that's our goal. Because of the way this floor is set up, we need to free one of the boats from its moorings to head there, and from what we've seen, there's lots of sea monsters out there. We're currently trying to find out the best route, eliminating patches of water where we can see big, dark things under the surface."

I frown. "That sounds like a pain."

Asuna shrugs. "What can you do? Oh, and Lizbeth, give him the weapons."

Lizbeth sighs. "Right. I finished these for you." She selects a few things from her inventory and drops them on the table next to the map. There are now four swords, and none of them are immediately recognizable.

She picks up the green one. "This is a sword that has a gem inside of it. The best one I could find that Kirito had left on him was a poison crystal, so this should poison enemies. It's called Gemdrain." She moves to the next one, one with red and blue winding around the hilt, and each edge of the blade sports one of the colors. "This used to be two swords, one of fire and one of ice. I accidentally combined them, but it's pretty powerful. Just make sure to use the right side when hitting things. It's called the Russian." The next sword is a long, purple bladed thing that looks more like a two handed sword than the one handed one it was made out of. "This is the Demonic Sword Gram. Its description says that it can phase in and out of existence, though I'm not sure how that would help." She holds up the last sword. "And this is the crown prize. It's called the Elucidator."

I take the Elucidator in my hands. It still resembles the Black Ice, but now the blade is a few inches longer and the hilt is more ornate. A white cross inset into the tip of the sword gives me an excellent mark of range of the weapon as I swing it carefully around. I open my menu with my left hand and equip the sword, familiar scabbard disappearing off the table and appearing on my back. I tuck the sword into it and stand up straight.

Lizbeth opens her inventory once more and materializes a coat. She holds it up for me to see. It's still the illusory coat, but now it has white piping running around the collar and down the sleeves. "This coat provides a massive concealment bonus. You can cast an image of yourself doing an action to fool whoever you're fighting." She glares at me. "Against my better judgment, I was told to give this to you. I really hope Asuna thought this through, because if he betrays us-"

"Liz, just give it to him." Asuna sighs. "If he was going to betray us, he would've let one of us touch the items."

"It could be part of a ploy to get you to trust him."

"Well then it worked." Asuna stands up from the map. "I think I know what we're going to do. Gather everyone else, and we'll go over the plan."

* * *

Fifteen minutes later, we all stare at Asuna in varying degree of amazement. Silica is the first to speak up. "That. Sounds. AWESOME!" She yells.

I plug my ear with my finger. "No need to use sonic weaponry here." I grumble. Klein grunts in assent.

Silica turns to us. "Oh, come on. We're going to ride _sea dragons_. There is nothing so awesome!"

Pina pokes his master's face. She reaches up to stroke him. "I didn't mean more awesome than you, Pina. You are always the most awesome. Sea dragons are second most awesome."

Pina purrs like a cat.

"I don't like it." Kuradeel says. For once, I agree. "It involves a mechanic that we don't even know exists. We have no idea if it will even work, and we'll be risking our lives to attempt it. Wouldn't just swimming over there be safer?"

Asuna shakes her head. "It took a while, but I realized something. There's a ring around the island where the creatures are." She points to the map. "See? It's almost perfectly circular. I bet that's there to keep players in. If we get a sea dragon, we can easily zip past those things."

Silica shudders. "Those big fish look disgusting."

Yui nods. "They look like overgrown catfish, and those are ugly to begin with."

I look at those two. "We get it. No monster catfish."

Lizbeth rolls her eyes. "I still don't understand how we're supposed to get the eggs."

"What eggs?" Klein asks. I silently agree with him.

Asuna gives an exasperated sigh. "Come on, the plan wasn't that hard to follow, was it?"

The rest of us, even Yui, nod in unison.

She throws her hands in the air in exasperation. "Then does anyone have a better plan?"

Yui raises her hand. "Why don't we use the underwater passageways?

Everyone turns to stare at her.

"What? I saw them when I was scouting the beach."

Asuna pinches the bridge of her nose. "Okay, new plan. Use those tunnels."

Silica pouts. "But I want a sea dragon!"

I bend down to the smaller girl's height. "If we're lucky and see a sea dragon egg, we'll consider getting it, but I make no promises, OK?"

Silica brightens back up. "OK!"

* * *

I was regretting that statement less than half an hour later. Turns out dragons are absurdly protective of their eggs. I have one clutched under my arm currently, and behind me, the sea dragon roars.

We're currently inside the underwater tunnel. Its walls ripple and let anything that hits it through, but traps the air down here for us to breathe. Since stuff can go through it, the giant sea monsters could as well, but we could hold our breaths and walk outside the tunnel for a minute or two.

Of course, when the enemy can swim three times faster than you can run in a flat out sprint, it's kind of a moot point. The only recourse at our disposal it to stand on fight. That's what all the sane, grounded members of Asuna's little rebellion are doing. I'm running around like a maniac, attempting to distract the fire breathing water lizard while the rest of the group attempts to kill it. Kuradeel had gotten a hit off on it and took away half of the creature's first health bar, but it released a black substance that clouded the water and made it impossible to track while it recuperated a bit. Meanwhile, we had discussed how to drain all three bars down to zero during the brief respite.

Then it came back and we had to scatter. Yui was peppering the monster with arrows, but her shots were going wild when they hit the water, rarely hitting it and when they do, they barely remove any of the thing's health. Asuna was attempting to do something with a crystal in her hands, but I couldn't tell what. Everyone else, especially Silica, are looking around uselessly as the great beast circles us. Silica still has her dagger in her hand, it's just, well, what is she going to do with it?

I draw Gemdrain out of its sheath across my back and ready it in front of me, the egg secure in my left arm.

"KLUTZ! I BLAME YOU FOR THIS!" Kuradeel's voice rings out.

"I BLAME ME TOO. SHUT UP AND HELP!" I call back.

The dragon pokes his head into the air bubble anchored to the floor of the seabed and growls. I stab at it, but it reels back and swims off before I can poison it.

"It might help if it wasn't so freaking fast!" I growl.

Klein steps towards the water, takes two slashes as the monster flashes past, and we're rewarded with a grumble of pain. A quick check of the beast's health shows we still have two bars and a quarter left. "Still not enough." Klein says. "We need to find a way to slow it down."

"No, really?" Lizbeth calls sarcastically. "Maybe you have massive chains to bind the thing!"

Klein stops. "No, not chains, but doesn't Klutz have an ice sword?"

I rush past, boiling water barely missing my back as I tuck into a roll. "I do! I also have I giant dragon after me!"

Asuna waves her arms. "It's after the egg, toss it to me!"

I toss the egg at our leader and watch as she grabs it perfectly and tears off. She's a lot faster than I am, seeing as her build is almost entirely agility. I quickly kneel down and open my window. I draw out the Russian, replacing Gemdrain and closing the weapon.

"Okay, what now?" I holler at nobody in particular.

"Freeze the water!" Kuradeel shouts back. "Limit where it can get to us!"

Having no better ideas, I swing the icy side of the blade towards the wall of water. Upon contact, the water freezes and forms a shell about my height as I drag it forward through the water. The ice does keep the dragon at bay, but it just swims right over to the other side. Asuna switches sides to the icy side and I replace her, dragging the sword through the wall on the other side to erect a second barrier.

Everyone ducks under the lips of the wall and takes a break, looking around warily. The dragon circles us restlessly, occasionally breaking through the water just outside of the icy sections. Asuna hand the egg to Silica.

"Here, put this in your inventory. That way we don't have to keep track of it."

Silica nods and shakily takes the egg. It disappears in a sparkle of light-

The dragon growls and smashes the wall behind me. The three of us resting against it, me, Klein and Yui, all just to our feet and slash with our weapons. I managed to nick its tail with the ice side of the blade, adding a sizable ice boulder to that appendage. Klein also got it, reducing its health down to 2 bars.

The ice is visibly dragging the creature down, and over the next several minutes of dodging and slashing we hack the great beast down to half of a bar of health.

That's when it turns tail and swims far enough away that we lose sight of it. Slowly, we lower our weapons and take inventory. Asuna and Silica heal up, having each received a large blow during the battle.

"Is it over?" Kuradeel asks with trepidation.

A low growl comes from behind us. We all turn as one to see the dragon swimming at us at full speed. Kuradeel, Klein and I raise our swords and hold them in the strongest stances we each have. I brace as hard as I can, the point of the Russian aimed right for the creature's left eye.

Behind me, Asuna raises her sword, the lance glowing white as she charges her most basic strike.

The dragon has rage in its eyes, and it doesn't look like it's going to stop.

An arrow zips right past my ear, sheering off some hair and passing through the water wall without deflecting. It hits the monster right in the eye, causing it to attempt to veer away. It is unable to abort its rush however, having built up too much speed. Instead, its efforts cause it to expose its belly to us, a waiting pincushion.

Asuna releases her skill right as the creature fills all of our collective vision. A white lance of light hits the dragon, slowing it down significantly.

It doesn't stop though, and whatever it is made of is very heavy. My sword lodges into the hide of the beast as it collides with me, and I get carried with it, into the water. Klein and Kuradeel's swords are jammed into the scaly hide as well, but they had had the good sense to let go. The monster writhes for another few seconds before going limp and shattering. I watch the other two swords sink quickly down to the bottom and sink halfway into the silt. I swim as fast as I can back to the tunnel, barely making it before my breath gauge runs out.

"Klutz?"

I turn around to see Asuna standing right behind me. I take deep breath before responding. "Yes?"

"Good job."

"Thanks."

I sit down on the ground and watch as Klein heads out to retrieve his sword and Kuradeel's. I don't move from this position for a good minute. We almost died there. Despite me being level 52, and the rest of the party being higher, we still almost died. If I was back to level 80, that would have been over in a snap. As it is, we're way too weak to be doing this floor. Floor forty nine! Not even halfway there!

Lizbeth pokes my shoulder, snapping me out of me thoughts. "You alright? You're spacing out."

I shake my head. "Nothing. Just… I don't know." Wow. Way to be convincing. I suck at lying. I do believe I've complained about this before, so I should probably find something better to complain about. Like, I don't know, the rest of the Black Cats?

Speaking of which, I haven't talked with them yet…

"Well, once you're done with staring at that rock, we're dividing the loot up." Lizbeth turns and disappears out of my peripheral vision.

I turn back and watch as they all start looking at the dropped items, Silica holding up a glowing blue rock that her dragon was clawing at playfully. Klein has a goofy grin on his face as he pulls a red katana out of the pile, the blade full of geometrical holes, like someone had cut metal plates out of it. As he grips it, the holes light up and dye the air around it red. Even from twenty feet away, I can feel the heat.

What the hell, I might as well see if there's anything I can use-

_Hello._

I walk over and reach out to grab the sword by its hilt, slowly drawing it out of its sheath as I back away from the pile. The blade is translucent, and it chills the air around it. Words are etched into the blade, but in this faint light I can't read it.

After I get a safe distance from everyone else, I draw it fully and give it a few test swings, and transition easily into a set of sword skills. This particular sword skill leaves a purple trail behind it, and the light reflects off the sword and creates lights all around.

Lizbeth smirks. "Hey, next time we have a party, you bring that sword okay? I have an idea."

"Party? Aren't we in one now?"

And two seconds later, I slap my face. How long has it been since the word party meant social gathering? Months. It seems a lot longer though.

Klein Swings his sword around in an arc, leaving a burning scent in its wake, though no fire appears. As he continues his movements, he calls out. "Look kid, I know that we're in kinda a tight situation, but if we don't relax every once in a while, we'll end like you."

"Hey! What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, you know, the whole grim attitude thing."

Everyone is staring at me instead of Klein. "I don't have a grim attitude! I have no idea what you're talking about!"

Lizbeth nods. "Yeah, you do. Did you think we wouldn't notice?"

I stare at her for a second. "No, I didn't think I had a grim attitude."

Yui taps her chin. "Any time you're not talking to one of us, you tend to have a frown on your face."

I look around. Heads are nodding in agreement. I put on an admittedly less than perfect smile. "I'm just worried about what's ahead, you know?"

Asuna smirks, an expression I didn't know she was capable of. "I bet he's worried about his guild."

How… spot on. Since when has she been able to read minds? I nod. "For all they know, I'm tied up in a cave somewhere. I want to talk to them, but figured I shouldn't for the time being."

Yui's eyes narrow. She turns towards Asuna and covers her mouth. From the muscles in her jaw moving, I assume she's whispering something, but what?"

Asuna's eyebrows shoot up after a second. A grin slowly spreads across her face. "Oh, so that's how it is."

A chill goes up my spine.

She gestures to everyone else. "We'll go on ahead; you can contact your friends."

I smile gratefully. The others lean in as Asuna explains something in a hushed whisper and at the same point all have the same half-smirk half-shocked faces, and are glancing at me. Then they start walking down the tunnel.

Whatever, they just allowed me to send a message.

Of course, I have no idea what to say. I have Sachi on my friend's list so contacting her isn't a problem, but how much should I reveal? I can't just outright tell her that I defected at the first opportunity. That would make her sad. I also can't tell her anything that will compromise our position, or else Heathcliff will be on us.

Heathcliff… I still don't know what he thinks of Klutz. Unless I get into his head, I don't suppose I'll ever know. Either that or he shows up on the same floor as us and kills me for coming back from the grave.

Suddenly, inspiration hits.

I open my message box and start typing in the air.

"Sachi,

"I have to keep this short. They figured out I was a spy, but are dragging me along with them to keep me from doing anything. They even had me leave the guild! This was my first opportunity to message you without anyone peeking over my shoulder. Anyway, I'm fine. Asuna seems to have some insane plan in mind for us, so I'm doing my best to find out what it is before she executes it. You don't have to worry about me; I'll try to contact you again soon.

"-Klutz

"P.S. Tell Heathcliff that we're always on the move, so don't bother raiding towns and villages."

I tap the send button and sigh. That's a load off my shoulders. I tilt my head back to look up at the bottom of floor 50, high above with the water darkening it down to night levels. It's nice to look at, at least until Yui's face appears in my field of view. Not that she's not pretty in Sinon's body…

"That was a nice message, though if the others had read it they wouldn't believe me."

I raise an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

"Well," She drags the word out to well over seven syllables. "I may have told them that you were dating Sachi, and that's how I convinced them to let you mail them."

My brain stops working. But… Sachi? She's nice, but I don't really know her. I certainly never considered asking her out. I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

Yui rolls her eyes. "Look, I know that's not true, but I needed to let you contact them."

I turn to look her directly in the face. "Why?"

Yui hesitates, something that triggers warning bells in my head. "I needed to see if you are really loyal to us. I didn't see anything incriminating, so you're off the hook for now."

She shifts into a more comfortable position before blinking and her expression freezing. "I have been measuring abnormal activity in your thought patterns. It was prudence."

I nod. Looks like the old Yui is back, at least for the moment.

"What do you mean by abnormal thought patterns?"

"Emotional spikes at moments where the future and leaving this simulation are brought up." After a second, she tilts her head. "Odd. It is not present."

I wave her away. "It's probably nothing. Just thinking about our future outside the Cardinal. Not there is much of one." I chuckle bleakly.

Yui tilts her head to the opposite side. "I am unsure of what you mean."

"Heathcliff told me. Out of here is a hollow tube with all of us inside it, and nothing else."

Yui shakes her head mechanically. "That is not entirely true. While our current spacecraft does indeed resemble a cylinder, we are currently 20 miles above a planet in orbit around the star Alpha Centari."

I stare at the girl. Not that I understood that, but 20 miles wasn't that far, was it? "Are you saying that he lied about that? Why would he do that?"

"I am unable to answer." Yui says. "I see I have unnecessarily added to your emotional spikes. As such, I will return to Sinon's personality for the time being."

I open my mouth to ask her to wait, but she is already frozen in place. Oh well. I flop backwards and stare at the top of the tunnel, seeing the small fish swim by.

Why do I keep getting these heavy revelations? Or, why can't I get them all at once, so I can make an informed decision?

I feel like smashing something. Too bad this room is cleared already, and nobody else is here-

Oh, right. I should probably get a move on. I look over at Yui, who is still frozen. She needs to work of fixing that as soon as possible.

A message comes in. I open it to find that it is indeed from x, but I don't have a chance to read it before Yui starts.

Her eyes flitter open and she looks at me. "Okay, time to go! I bet Asuna's getting 'ideas.'"

I can feel my cheeks go red and turn to the exit. "Yeah, and it would be a bad idea to get left behind."

Yui cheerfully skips forward. I follow shortly after, calling ahead to the others to wait up.

* * *

The tunnel led us right to the tube leading upwards. It's extremely convenient, especially in comparison with the overseas route. The only problem we had was with that dragon; everything else scattered away or died to our blades in short order. Thus we came to the end of the tunnel back to high spirits, and Silica's clutching an egg to boot. Pina seems to like the egg as well, wrapping his leathery wings around the delicate object to keep it warm.

Kuradeel was showing a lot of interest in the egg. When asked why, he blushed.

"I like dragons. The one I ride was really cool, and I wanted to see how she's taking care of it."

I clap him on his shoulder. "That's really cool. If you want your own egg, have fun, but I'm not helping you get it."

He shrugs. "I understand. I doubt that I'll have the chance to raise a dragon either. Wishful thinking."

I nod. "Alright."

Asuna points ahead. "Look! Isn't that the entrance to the tower?"

I turn and sure enough, there it is. "Wow. That was a bit faster than I expected it to be."

Klein nods. "Well, everyone ready? What's in there is bound to be a lot harder than anything out here."

We all give him a look. He puts on an offended look. "Hey, it's not like I don't know how this works. It's well documented that the dungeons are harder than the outer plains."

"Still, I'd rather you didn't jinx us." Lizbeth says.

Klein rests an arm on top of her head, and her face contorts. He pretends not to notice. "Jinxing isn't a real thing. Just by saying that something is bad doesn't mean that it will get worse in a few minutes."

Lizbeth reaches up and removes the elbow from her scalp, unceremoniously dumping the limp arm. "I don't know if it works or not, but every time I say stuff like that, my swords end of like crap."

I pipe in. "Is it possible that since you were thinking those thoughts, you were distracted enough to ruin the swords?"

She glares daggers at me. I hold my hands up in surrender.

Yui throws her hip to the side and purses her lips. "Actually, wasn't there something in the player handbook about the luck skill?"

The rest of us stop and look at the blue-haired girl. She looks between the six of us. "What?"

"Luck skill is a dump stat. you don't need it for anything, so there's no point in taking any levels in it." Klein says.

Yui shakes her head. "Noooo, it's what determines your crit chance, how many bonus points you get each time you level, and how much higher than the minimum damage you take for each strike."

We all stare at her some more.

"That was also in the handbook, but I forgot it's not officially distributed anymore." Yui laughs nervously.

"Yui." Asuna says.

"Y-yes?"

"Please be quiet."

Yui mimes zipping her lips shut.

We turn back to the door leading into the tower. I take a deep breath and push the double doors open.

They swing in quite easily. We all cautiously take a few steps in, looking around for traps and ambushes. Yui is following us, still not talking but gesturing oddly to anyone who has the patience to watch, which would be none of us.

After a quick search, we all had the same good and bad news. The good news is that this room is entirely devoid of traps, illusions, monsters, mechanical contraptions and other painful things. The bad news is that there are places for all of that stuff. I personally found a set of grooves in the floor precisely the right size for an automated fireball trap, but it's gone. The pattern on the floor even shows a fireball turret between the grooves.

While I'm glad I don't have to deal with the sheer amount of weapons in here, I am apprehensive about what that has to mean.

Lizbeth's voice rises to fill the silence. "S-so, if all this stuff is gone, and we didn't do it…"

Asuna finishes her sentence. "…Then who did?"

Klein gulps. "The only other people who had a chance were those red players that forced us to hide."

Red players. The thought sends a chill down my spine.

"You guessed it!" Cackles someone from above us.

We all slowly turn to see several grinning PKers brandishing weapons of all types.

In the center is a face I never wanted to see again. The leader of the Laughing Coffin.

He smirks. "Heathcliff let us off of that blasted 28th floor." He says. "And the only condition he had was that we kill all of you. Get them!"


	16. Chapter 16: Rage and Pain

Someone asked in the comments how to read the SAO books in english. First of all, books 1-7 are published in English. Buy those if you can.

Then, you have to find some fan translations. Try googling tap trans, and look at BakaBT for the ones Tap hasn't covered.

Remember to support the author, as that's the only way we get more official material!

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

Fighting a player is nothing like fighting a monster or NPC human.

First of all NPCs and monsters, known as mobs, have set behavior patterns. For instance, a dragon will attack in the same way all the time. This extends past what seems reasonable. For instance, attacking a dragon with a thrust from a sword will always set off a jump backwards, aided by a downwards flap of the wings, causing an unbalancing gust of wind. The dragon will do this forever if you continue to ineffectively thrust at it and it doesn't find an opening. Dragons don't learn to stop doing it either, if you find a way to exploit that behavior to your advantage. And every single dragon acts this way. Or, one in every three does. There are different attack patterns that dragons in particular use, but that's semantics. Those spiders on floor five only have one "move-set" and that makes them simple to learn and defeat. Bosses usually have several; a new one activating once one health bar is gone. These patterns are why I can defeat bosses and entire floors myself. Once I know how a creature attacks, I can plan ahead and accurately predict have a battle will go.

Still, in the end, mobs are predictable.

NPCs are a little different. Instead of attack patterns, they have personalities. A random shopkeeper down on floor... I don't know, 16? It will have a personality. Whether it be cheery, grumpy, actively antagonistic, or something else, they all have personalities. The thing is, they don't change. I killed lots of NPCs down on floor thirteen. All of them, really. The next day, they treated me just like they always did. The hotel manager had continued to be civil, if a bit sleazy. On one floor, when almost out of my mind I talked to a lot of the NPCs, and they don't learn anything. I could tell one my life story and they wouldn't remember a thing or even react. They also just say the same things over and over if you find the correct words to confuse them.

This means that, given enough time, NPCs are completely predictable. I never stuck around long enough to try.

Yui is an exception, as far as I can gather. She learns from what she's told. But then, she was designed to, and she's the only one who can.

Humans, players, they have minds, and can learn. You can't attack them the same way three hundred times and have them respond the same way. Thrust and skewer them once, and they will be watching for that strike the next time it comes and have a plan to counterattack. Well, the ones who can fight do. Those that don't are dead.

This proved to be a problem for me, and me only. Everyone else has been training against human opponents as well as mobs and NPCs down on the lower floors. Asuna handles her opponents with grace, and all the rest, even Silica, are able to hold off two opponents each. I'm only able to manage the one. I had spent my entire fighting life attempting to learn patterns. I am also prone to falling into them myself, which would make me as predictable as a mob, which is definitely not desirable.

Soloing for way too long has come to bite me in the ass once again.

Of course, I was also dealing with Verde, the leader of the Laughing coffins, one of the more well-known red guilds. His hair is still red, which still clashes with his name. I still find it funny. His skill, though, is several leagues above mine in player versus player fights, as he's spent his entire life killing players.

I lift the Demon Sword Gram above my head to block the heavy two-handed blow from Verde's poison green blade, with matching spikes protruding along even intervals. Sparks fly as his blade slides along mine to disentangle itself from my blade. I rear a fist back, but he had anticipated that trick and suddenly let go of his blade.

All the weight I had put into pulling back on my sword to keep his locked with mine translates into me losing my balance. I stumble backwards three steps before getting it back, and by that time his sword has already slid off the end of mine. He dashes forwards and swoops in back up, already turning to hammer another blow home. I take another step back to dodge and the sword's tip slices off a long lock of hair from in front of my eyes. Technically, this helped with the whole hair-in-the-eyes problem, but that was too close. I swipe down at his calf and he jumps upwards, and I plant a kick in his stomach before he lands. It sends him tumbling backwards about twenty feet and that gives me a second to glance around the room.

There are a total of thirteen attackers, against our seven. That equates to two each except for a last pair, Verde and me. I recognize a few other Laughing Coffin members, Lisanna and Driver in particular. Lisanna, who was Verde's second in command if I recall correctly, is squaring off with Asuna, another young looking thug opposite Lisanna and swiping recklessly at Asuna at every chance. Driver is swing a heavy mace at Klein, another nameless red player occasionally taking a half-hearted swipe. I could tell he was way out of his league, and only Driver's relentless assault was keeping him alive.

Well, that and our handicap.

Six of us, Kuradeel, Klein, Asuna, Silica, Lizbeth and I all have a cursor restriction. See, the rules about cursors suck. If you're green you can't attack anyone unless they're red and inside a city zone or have been attacked by that red player, or one of your family members is attacked. This makes it impossible for green players to sneak out at night and go looking for red players to kill. Yellow players can attack red players under the same circumstances. Red players though, they have nothing to lose at this point. While they can't attack inside the city, we're not in a city right now.

He recovers and swipes horizontally as he comes within range. I duck under another swipe, some part of my mind registering that I had done this three times now, and anything more would be inviting attack.

Right now, I'm at about ninety-eight percent health. I hadn't gotten hit yet, but the very act of attacking does a tiny bit of damage, supposedly to simulate damage to the wrists, if the Player's Handbook was to be a judge. This is quite impressive, since I have approximately twelve thousand hit points, and each blow removes about twenty points at this level.

Until his blade cuts me, I can't attack him full-heartedly either. If I killed him without him landing the first blow, I'd turn red. While you wouldn't think I would care, my stomach freezes each time I think about it. I think about The Moonlit Black Cats and my desire to at least remain orange surges up and cripples my blows.

Why don't I just let him hit me then?

His sword is poisoned. I can't prove it, per se, but that liquid that keeps dripping off the spikes on the sword hisses when it hits the ground.

The only one not under an attacking restriction is Yui. She's designated herself as red, something exceedingly helpful. She fires arrows all around, but the majority go towards her two attackers who are both alarmingly fast. Put it this way. Yui, with her small handicap in the form of Sinon, was barely able to hit them, and she's a computer.

I briefly wonder if Sinon is a red character, or if Yui is able to alter her marker at will. I'll have to ask her if she can sometime.

The next strike is the heaviest I've had to block so far. It takes a huge chunk out of my sword's durability. He must have hit the sweet spot-

He yanks his sword back _pulling mine with it. _There goes the Demon Sword Gram.

I blink in brief confusion, then take a flying leap backwards, opening my inventory in the air. Months of practice makes the process swift, and I draw out the crystal sword, Gemdrain. Fight poison with poison. Ironic, no?

Verde hadn't even blinked at my maneuver, continuing through with his strike like he expected me to dash backwards. He probably did, now that I thought about it. As I land and skid a few feet, I mentally berate myself for distracting myself with thoughts not related to battle.

Gemdrain pulses a sickly greenish-yellow as I start up a sword skill designed to create a bladed defense by putting the sword everywhere it can be at once and hoping the enemy's blade bounces off of it. Asuna's a lot better at it then I am, but that's because her build is centered around speed. Still, it gets the job done.

Verde backs off a few steps and regards me. "I was told you would be a formidable foe, but I have yet to see anything resembling a challenge from your blade." He smirks. "I think Heathcliff thinks too highly of you."

"And why would that be? He saw me train, I'm nothing special."

Verde laughs, a cold laugh that is devoid of the usually merriment and replaced with twisted glee. "I know who you are for real."

My blood turns to ice. I must have frozen on the outside as well, because Verde lunges at me with his sword. I barely deflect the blade-

My stomach implodes from the force of his left fist landing the first solid hit of the fight. My hit points drop to about ninety-five percent. I go sprawling backwards, bouncing once before landing about thirty feet away, on my back.

Despite this, I smile. He had just allowed me to hit back.

He walks up to me and raises his blade to stab downwards, something sure to prove fatal.

I roll sideways as the blade comes down, and to his surprise the sword locks into the spongy ground that makes up the floor of this room. The spikes that had gripped my blade are now fighting his efforts to pull it out. I dash over to my other sword and tuck it into my inventory really quick.

He gives up attempting to wrest the green sword from its place and starts flipping through his menu. He isn't fast enough.

I nick his arm with my blade as he desperately twists out of the way, but it's enough. His twisting motion continues and he lands head first, a snooze icon appearing next to the poison one that my sown had inflicted. The paralysis had made his movement enough to knock him out.

Works for me. I scan the room again, taking stock of the situation. Silica and Lizbeth are still fighting their two opponents. Klein had at some point in his fight knocked out the weaker of the two opponents, but Driver is still going strong. Same with Asuna, who had seemingly stuffed a healing crystal in the thug's mouth while still fending off Lisanna. I had to admire her for that. Yui's two opponents are slowing down, the accumulating cuts starting to take their toll. Kuradeel is the only one who seems to be having fun. He ducks and weaves around the blades like he can see the future. Scoring light hits on both his opponents as they block, always on defense.

Taking quick stock, the one that needs my help the most is probably Silica. The small dagger user is slowly being forced towards a wall, where she would be pinned and eventually overwhelmed. Everyone else here has a lot more experience.

I dash across the room, an arrow made of light expertly timed to soar right past my ear. I barely flinch, knowing just how accurate Yui should be, given her calculation abilities. I arrive just as one of the thugs attacking Silica raises a sword, a small spattering of the poison dripping off the blade.

I leap and barely send the blade off course, and it instead cleaves off one of Pina's limbs. The poor tiny dragon howls before falling limply off Silica's shoulder. Silica's eyes grow wide and she shrieks.

"PINA!"

I interpose myself between the girl, now on her hands and knees to cradle the fallen companion. Without waiting to be attacked first, I sweep the legs out from under both thugs. My marker turns orange, but that hardly registers. I crash my boot into each of the thugs' faces and turn to Silica once I confirm they're both sleeping.

"How is he?" I ask hurriedly.

She looks up with tears in her eyes. "His hit points are still dropping."

I curse under my breath and pull out three healing potions. I almost never used the things, as if I got time to use them, my battle healing should have kicked in anyway.

Rather, that's how I used to operate. Now, I might be giving away something lifesaving, but I'll think about that later.

A blue-haired streak lands beside me, skidding backwards a few feet before she straightens up and fires her bow three times in quick succession. I whip around to face the two foes Yui had brought and I smack the first one with the flat of my blade. His eyes roll up and Yui unleashes an abnormally fuzzy arrow that knocks the other attacker out. The woman is asleep before she hits the ground.

I arch an eyebrow at Yui. She grins. "I knew sleep arrows would come in handy!"

I didn't know they sold those. Out loud, I say "Take care of Silica. If you can, see what kind of poison was on this guy's blade. I'm going to help Klein."

Yui nods and stands over the girl curled into a ball and starts loosing arrows at Kuradeel's opponents. I don't stick around to see how effective it is, charging at Klein's opponent, the big dude named Driver.

I have fought Driver only once before, in a duel. I had knocked him out with relative ease, and I don't really recall him being anything special. Boy, had that changed.

I used to wonder just who is the kind of person to use a buster sword. Apparently, Driver is, and he's very skilled with it. In the short time it takes me to cross the floor, I see him whip the gigantic blade around in a circle and force Klein to go skidding back five feet due to the sheer impact of the massive sword. I can hear Klein yell over the sound of scraping metal.

"It looks like someone is overcompensating!" He yells with a mocking tone, the taunt less effective for the strain in his voice.

Oh Klein. You crazy son-of-a-bitch.

Driver remains silent, content to smash his sword down again, a much more effective version of the same attack Verde had pulled on me several times. I rush up and add my sword to pushing the heavy buster sword up and away from Klein and me. He turns and gives me a small smile, then turns back and yells a battle cry, putting all his strength into repelling the blade threatening to crush us. I add my own shout to the mix and we throw Driver back a few steps.

Klein activates a sword skill and dashes in, poking Driver in the side a few times with the point of his blade. The larger man's hit points don't get reduced by anything visible to the naked eye, but red scratches appear where the sword slices into the hulking form.

I take a literally flying leap and soar over Driver, swiping downwards with my sword on the way over. Driver grabs my sword as I rocket over.

And then he falls victim to the paralysis effect of my blade. God, I love this sword.

Klein walks around to Driver's head and plants a boot into it, knocking the large man out cold. I sigh as I look around. The only fighter left standing is Asuna's foe, Lisanna. Lizbeth and Kuradeel are both rummaging in their inventories for healing items having dispatched both of their foes.

I step forward to aid her, but Klein puts his hand on my shoulder. I turn to him and he shakes his head, smirking.

I turn back and watch as Asuna dances around Lisanna's blade. For the first time, I notice that both are lance users, and both are very, very fast. The blades that each of the women wield are naught but blurs as I stand in awe. Occasionally, a sword skill would activate, red for Lisanna and White for Asuna, though sometimes it's hard to tell whether or not that's actually a sword skill or just the colors of Asuna's KoB uniform blurring together.

And I wanted to compete with that? Arrogance doesn't cover it.

I can't tell you exactly what happened, but one moment Asuna and Lisanna are dueling furiously, and the next Lisanna is sprawled out on the floor.

For a second, all is silent. Then, six cheers ring throughout the spacious room. Lizbeth runs over to Klein, who picks her up and swings her around in a circle. Asuna and Kuradeel high-five. Yui fires a few brightly colored arrows up into the roof, turning the yellowish haze of the natural lighting into a multicolored one. And Silica-

Aw, crap.

I run over to Silica and kneel by her. She's still clutching the dragon to her chest, tears spilling from her eyes. The rest of the group quickly realizes something is wrong and comes over to Silica. I turn to Yui. "Did you identify the poison?"

She nods. "It's a rare variety. It's used to inflict mostly pain, but if left unchecked it will eventually kill you. It's nasty in that it's designed to kill you over the course of an hour, taking a small percentage of your hit points per second, and it's extremely painful. It's used to torture people."

Klein swears. "Do we have an antidote?"

Yui shakes her head. "Nobody in this party has an antidote. Though, I could synthesize it here if I had the right materials."

Asuna places a hand on the blue-haired girl's shoulder. "What do you need?"

Yui points to the dropped poison sword. "I need two drops of the poison from that sword, a chunk of obsidian, and a mild health potion."

Lizbeth immediately grabs the poisoned sword and starts pressing in her inventory. Once the sword was broken down into its components, she should get two or three drops of the poison used to make the sword, along with steel ingots, or bronze, or whatever the sword was made of. Sometimes leather if the hilt has a wrapping like this one. I know this because Lizbeth used to tell me all about blacksmithing.

The potion is easiest to get, since we all have at least a few. I handed Yui my potion.

"So, does anyone have an obsidian weapon?" Lizbeth asks, handing the poison vials to Yui. "I don't care that type of weapon."

Everyone digs into their inventory in various states of frantic activity. I already knew the answer was that I didn't have one, but I was hoping against all hope I had missed one.

I hadn't.

Asuna lets out a panicked noise as she stares at her inventory, scrolling up and down multiple times as I watch. Klein's cursing is increasing in volume. Yui is resolute, but she has a troubled look still on her face, so Sinon is still present. Silica was slowly combing through her inventory, and everyone could tell when she found nothing.

The littlest member of our group's sobs wrenched at everyone's hearts, even mine.

"Here."

We all turn to see Kuradeel holding out a masterpiece of a sword. It's pitch black, shiny like a perfectly smooth pebble, such that I could see reflections in its surface. It gives off a faint purplish glow.

It's obvious that it's obsidian, and it's equally obvious that it's a very powerful weapon. Lizbeth reaches out to grab it, but she hesitates at Kuradeel's expression. He looks like someone is robbing him, to be honest.

"Kuradeel?" Asuna asks quietly.

"This sword... It's my best sword. I wanted to save it for the final boss." He says mournfully. "I really want to keep it, but it wouldn't be right, would it?"

Everyone else nods their heads in agreement, but in my head, my mental eyes start widening. This dragon, Pina, is a construct like Yui. A collection of data. If Kuradeel was saving it for the final boss, then it's got to be super powerful. What if by giving up this sword to the dragon, doomed to die by the server shutting down, we screw ourselves over down the road?

I look up sharply in time to see the powerful sword crack and disintegrate into several chunks of obsidian and three purple rods that glowed and hovered a bit above the ground.

Too late.

Yui scoops up one of the obsidian chunks and starts messing with her menu. After only twenty seconds, she pulls out a potion the color of my poison sword, the sickly light making Pina's blue scales look brown. Silica quickly grabs the potion and gently pours it down the dragon's throat.

Pina slowly opens his eye and chirps at us. He struggles to his feet and paws at Silica, who proceeds to hug the tiny familiar. I look around at the other's faces. All of them look happy, but Kuradeel looks a bit forlorn behind his smile. None of them look troubled. Then I have another thought.

I cough. "Maybe we should tie up those guys before we continue? I don't want to have a repeat performance."

Asuna nods and takes a deep breath. "Okay. Let's tie them up."

Klein frowns. "But if we tie them up, what's going to happen to them?"

Asuna shrugs. "Someone will find them."

I realize Klein's point. "No they won't. We took a hidden passage. Nobody could come down here for a long time." I blink. "Of course, they're murderers and deserve to die anyway, so-"

The sheer force of Lizbeth's and Asuna's glares scare me.

I throw up my hands. "Then what do you want to do? Teleport them to the first floor?"

Lizbeth purses her lips. "That _is_ a solution."

I glare at her. "Not a good one. We'd have to go to the bottom floor and set up our corridor crystal."

Asuna frowns. "True. If we trusted them with teleport crystals..."

Klein snorts. "Trust. Riiiiiiiight."

I nod. "My point." I hesitate. "We could always contact someone and have them come and get them."

Yui shakes her head. "Unwise, as that would both clue in our opponents to our unopened-gates plan as well as speed them up in coming after us on this floor."

A heavy silence follows.

Asuna snaps her fingers after a few moments and turns to Yui. "You can teleport right back here, right? Teleport these guys back to the lower floors and teleport back. That's the fastest way."

Yui blinks a few times, then gives a small nod.

Looks like Yui's back to being all Yui.

She grabs the nearest of the fallen Laughing Coffin members and disappears without a sound.

Asuna clears her throat. "Okay, everyone prepare your weapons. Once Yui is done, we're moving out."

* * *

(Asuna's Perspective)

"Asuna?"

I look over to Klein. We had just crushed the floor 49 boss. Klutz and Silica are rummaging through the spoils a ways off, Yui watching over their shoulders. Kuradeel is running around with a mace, and Lizbeth is chasing him around, practically venting steam from her ears.

"Yes Klein?" I turn to him. His face is worried, drawn tight, and staring at Klutz.

"I..." He shakes his head. "I don't want to alarm you, but there's something odd about Klutz."

I freeze in place. He notices and glances around nervously. "I just... look, can you send the others ahead? I need to talk to you in private."

I nod slowly and turn to the rest of the group. "You guys head up to the next floor, okay? Grab all the loot and go. Klein needs to have some _habits_ redressed."

Klein flinches, and I can see Kuradeel and Klutz wincing along with him. However, they all dutifully store all of the weaponry piled in front of them into their inventories and head for the exit. Lizbeth snatches the mace from Kuradeel's hands just before they round the corner.

I turn to the red-haired samurai, who looks more disconcerted than I had ever seen him before. "Okay, so, you know that Klutz was sent as a spy, right? By Heathcliff."

I nod slowly.

"Well, I overheard Klutz and his opponent talking." Klein looks sick. "He said that Heathcliff had figured out who Klutz really is."

I frown. "What does that mean?"

Klein shrugs. "And that's not all. Remember when you had Yui teleport all those Laughing Coffin guys down to the lower floors?"

"Yes... that was three hours ago." I say with an edge in my voice. "Get to the point."

Klein looks around again. It's starting to get me paranoid. "He didn't even blink when she did that. He just turned to you when you spoke."

...Holy crap. Why _hadn't _ he reacted? Why hadn't he freaked out? Hell, why didn't he even have a question as to how she was doing it?  


"He had to have known about her already." I say finally.

Klein nods gravely. "And that has major implications."

I lean against the wall of the boss chamber. This one looks like a cathedral, just twenty times too big for humans and lacking seating of any kind. "So... if he is working for Heathcliff, then we have no choice but to restrict his information."

Klein chuckles darkly. "We're already supposed to be doing that, right?"

I nod. "He's just too nice. I know I shouldn't be trusting him, especially in light of this, but..."

Klein leans against the wall next to me. "I know. I thought he was a decent guy from the day we went fishing together. I'm usually a good judge of character." He frowns. "Though, that wouldn't explain why 'Heathcliff found out who you really are' is a threat to him."

I frown. "Yeah, that is strange. Maybe he's not under Heathcliff, but acting on someone else's orders."

Klein shudders. "Then we don't know everything that's going on."

That's even scarier.

"So, what do we do?" I ask.

Klein shakes his head. "I have no idea. Confront him, maybe? I'm sure that if we tell him those two, we'll get some sort of reaction from him."

I blow out my lips, then remember an important detail. "He was sending messages to someone that Yui couldn't reach. Maybe those messages are from outside the Cardinal server?"

Klein rubs his temples. "That means someone outside is interfering with things."

I hesitate. "Well... they seem to have the same goal as us."

Klein nods. "Yeah, but why? I don't know why, and that scares me." He throws his hands up. "Maybe they don't have the same goals, and are just stringing us along until we end up doing something for them."

I shake my head. "We can't do anything until we have a lot more information then."

Klein grunts in affirmation. We're both silent for a minute.

"This sucks." I say.

He snorts.

Footsteps come clattering down from the way the rest of the group had fled. Lizbeth has wide eyes as she says, in a tremulous voice, "You, you guys need to see this."

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

When Yui was zipping back and forth, transporting the members of the Laughing Coffin down to somewhere on the lower floors, I sent a quick message to x. We sent a few message back and forth, and I learned something crazy.

Yui was lying. x has proof.

According to him, Heathcliff's version of what was going on outside the pods was a lot more accurate. Outside, there's a vast nothing. No planet, not for a long, long time.

Four hundred years more.

According to him, Alpha Centauri has no habitable planets. None. The closest planet to our original location that humans can live on is called Kapteyn-b. It's 13 light years away, which I learned was the time it took light, the fastest thing in the universe, 13 years to travel that distance. We're roughly twenty percent of the way to our destination, going at a ridiculous speed that x said had almost torn apart the ship despite being in a vacuum.

Whatever that means.

According to x, there's an entire city up here though. Outside the pods that keep us alive, there's a giant space city twice the size of Aincrad. There would be room to move around, but it's still a bit restrictive.

He smugly noted that Yui was obviously lying and Heathcliff was leading me into a trap.

I pointed out that if that was his goal, why wouldn't Yui just say there was nothing as well, and discourage me from going? Why have two different stories?

He grudgingly admitted I had a point, and told me that he had, in fact, an android body for Yui, if she survived the server wipe, which is definitely a thing. He said he had made it for someone else, but if Yui could prove she was helping us by the time we cleared the game, then he might consider letting her use it.

I had mulled over his words the entire way up to the boss room, and now that we are being sent ahead of Asuna and Klein, my thoughts drift back there.

x had provided me with one other crucial piece of information. There are other servers, Cardinal server clones that had varying success, and all but one of them is still running. The first one to be "cleared" was a server containing around five thousand people who all had wings. They fought constant wars over territory. They could come back to life though, so it wasn't as devastating to them as it would be to us.

Of course, once they got out, they didn't realize that killing people was bad. There was a massacre, and then the servers had been locked down and the Game Master, GM for short, was told to make sure everyone stayed inside their simulations.

He also told me that Heathcliff had said "Of course. That was my plan anyway." and cut off all contact between the real world and the main Cardinal server.

That was scary.

I was thinking back to these revelations, so absorbed in them that I bumped into Lizbeth when she halts suddenly in front of me.

I say some sort of mumbled apology, but she doesn't even notice. It takes me a second to realize what I'm seeing.

Lizbeth turns around and runs back down the stairs. My jaw drops and I can't put it back in place.

Floor fifty. The halfway point. The proof that progress is being achieved, and a major milestone.

The floor is completely blank. Smooth. Un-featured. I can see from one edge of the floor to the other, the sky outside red as the sun sets. Or rises. With no reference points, I have no way of knowing without looking at my clock. Looking up, I can see a roof of sorts, the floors that are supposed to exist outlined in the walls. It's like a tin with those dents in the side to make it look like the design is popping out, just inverted. From the outside, it would look like there were one hundred floors. On the inside...

Empty. Panic threatens to set in once I realize that there's no tube leading up. We can't physically get up to the final floor.

How can we beat the final boss?

I calm myself down and force myself to look around. Silica Just looks confused, Kuradeel looks perturbed, and Asuna, Klein and Lizbeth are all gone...

Yui, however, is not alright. I can tell she had Sinon in command because her eyes are wide and she _is _panicking.

"No... I, the maps said, there's a floor here. A tree there. There's supposed to be NPCs and-" Abruptly, her face goes blank, and her eyes close. Then she falls over and crumbles to shards of glass.

"Well, shit." I hear myself say as if from the end of a tunnel.

The three come up the stairs and stare in much the same fashion I had.

"Wh-what is this?" Asuna whispers to nobody in particular.

"The end." Comes a grim voice.

I whirl to find Heathcliff, eyes closed, his hands resting on the sword and shield combo he always used.

"You!"

It all instantly clicks into place. Heathcliff had probably deleted the further floors, or never made them. He didn't want us out. He wanted us to stay here. Forever.

I draw my blade which gets him to open his eyes, leveling his steely gaze towards me.

He chuckles. "The sword? Surely you must know that weapons you bring have no effect on me."

I grit my teeth. "I'll never know until I try."

He smirks. "Right, though I won't give you the chance. In fact I'd rather you didn't even attempt it. See, I have an offer for you."

I can feel five pairs of eyes focusing on me, the rest of the group suddenly coming away from the horrible truth to stare at me. To see what the newest member might do.

"You can keep your offer." I snarl.

Heathcliff shakes his head. "No, I think you should hear me out. After all," He gestures to the gloom behind him, which I just noticed. "I have something you want to keep."

Out of the roiling black fog comes fifteen figures. Ten of them are dressed in KoB uniforms, though it seems the KoB has added helmets so I can't see their faces. In between two of them each are the Moonlit black Cats, wearing torn clothing and with their hit points in the red. Barely alive. The guards holding them and dragging them along on each side of them have swords at their throats.

Oh, shit.

I can hear several sudden inhalations behind me.

I can see all of them, Keita, Sachi, Tetsuo, Ducker, and Sasamaru.

Sachi's eyes plead with me. The rest of them look betrayed. I avert my gaze.

Heathcliff continues calmly. "My proposal is this. Your friends go free, both the Moonlit Black Cats and Asuna's little guild. They all stop fighting and settle down on a floor of their choosing, living out a quiet life in whatever trade they choose. You can all go back to living your happy lives, and peace will be restored to Aincrad. You however," He glares at me. "Are going to die no matter what. You've been a thorn in my side for too long."

"And if I refuse?" I spit.

"Then you all die here." He gestures to the soldiers behind him. "These are my strongest fighters, and as you should know, I'm immortal."

"How should he know that?" Hollers Klein. I glance back to seem him genuinely looking for an answer.

Wait. Does Klein not trust me?

Heathcliff laughs. "Oh, did you not tell, them, _Klutz?"_ He sneers out the last word.

No...

He turns to the rest of the group. "Klutz, as you know him, is actually a man named Kikuoka Seijirō."

...What?

"He's been a thorn in my side for far too long, and now it's time to get rid of you." He turns his attention back to me. "Did you think I wouldn't recognize your silly androgynous avatar? Did you think I wouldn't see the signs of influence?"

"I..." I clear my throat. "I don't know who that is."

Heathcliff stares at me for a second, then opens his menus. He flips through a few things, then arches an eyebrow. "Ah, I see. He sent in someone aside from himself to avoid the possibility of him dying. The coward." To me he says, "You know him by a fake name, I would guess. Does 'Chrysheight' sound familiar?"

I slowly shake my head.

Heathcliff shakes his head. "Then get any anonymous mail?"

I arch an eyebrow. "x?"

He stares at me. "How unoriginal." He finally stands up straight and slides the shield over his arm. "It's sad that you were dragged into this. I will give you one last chance to accept my offer."

I stare at him. He was unbeatable, right. So fighting him would be fruitless. But... going back down to the lower floors? Well, not me...

I look around at the rest of Asuna's party. They all looked at me, solemn except for Silica, who looks scared.

I turn back and look at the ground five feet in front of me.

I close my eyes. "I'll choose-"

"Time's up."

My head snaps upwards to see Heathcliff slide his hand across his throat. The guards behind him raise their swords. Sachi closes her eyes. Keita stares at me with fury. The other three close their eyes and relax, their fate inevitable.

I'm fast. Asuna's a lot faster.

Neither of us are fast enough to stop the five people whom I had befriended from turning into so much broken glass, disappearing on the wind.

For a moment, my mind is completely blank, uncomprehending.

The next, _I saw red._


	17. Chapter 17: Lies and Third Chances

(Asuna's Perspective)

I reacted only a fraction of a second after Klutz did. I dash forwards, but I don't get even half the distance to Heathcliff and the others before the HP bars on all of the members of the Moonlit Black Cats reach zero, and they shatter into so much glass.

I had only "met" the Moonlit Black Cats once, when they snuck up on us and we knocked them out and tied them up. Still, I'm pretty sure it's obvious who is in the right when one of the parties is holding hostages. I use these thoughts to rationalize my behavior later, but I acted on instinct. Preservation of life.

Klutz came to a complete stop, his face contorting with several conflicting emotions, then going completely blank. Something snaps, and his eyes lose any warmth they contained, and a low growl starts emanating from his throat. He draws the black and white sword Liz called the Elucidator and charges. Under the growl, I can hear a slight whine.

It's a noise of pain and fury. Unadulterated murderous intent to get revenge.

I make no effort to stop him as he races past, almost as fast as I can go. His eyes are wide.

This isn't Klutz. Klutz was the nice, effeminate swordsman. This beast is something different.

Klein had said something was up. Yui had noted several strange conversations. Klutz himself had seized up when Heathcliff was accusing him of being someone else, though I doubt he knew it himself.

Whoever he used to be, it was this… creature that is screaming at Heathcliff.

Heathcliff is invincible. His sword and shield combo was an impenetrable defense, and besides, he had demonstrated that he can't be hurt when he doesn't want to, back when he was battling Kirito. Not that Klutz would know that.

The first blow that Klutz lands breaks Heathcliff's sword in half.

The five of us that weren't fighting stare wide eyed.

Klutz hammers his black blade into Heathcliff's shield again and again, driving the silver-haired man back blow by blow. I had never seen that look in my former leader's eyes.

It was genuine fear.

The black sword rings with every blow, the only noise on the empty fiftieth floor of Aincrad.

A message pops into my inbox. It's an odd color, not the typical purple, but orange.

I open it without taking my eyes off the duel halfway between my little party and Heathcliff's soldiers. I didn't recognize any of them, but I'm sure I could if they lost their helmets.

Klein leans over. "Klutz is a much better fighter than I gave him credit for."

I nod in agreement.

I glance sideways at the open message. It's short and to the point.

"Keep Kayaba occupied for 2 minutes."

I don't know if any of you know, but fights rarely last sixty seconds. Duels have sixty seconds set as a default, and those typically end in less than half that. In a fight, two minutes might as well have been two hours.

Though, we may not need to, seeing as Klutz is holding more than his own in his fight.

That doesn't stop the KoB soldiers from carefully striding up to us. Once again, second time in less than a day in fact, I find myself fighting two to one odds.

These guys looked a _lot_ more hesitant to attack us, despite that.

Two of them approach each of us, blades at the ready. The two that break off to square against me halt about twenty feet away.

I take a single step to the left and they mirror my movements. So, they're here to make sure I don't interfere?

I don't know how I could, if Heathcliff is immortal.

Klein yells in frustration and attacks the two in front of him. He brings them both down in less than a second.

That's when all hell breaks loose.

The two men dressed all in red lose their nerve and the one on the right takes a wide swing with a large axe.

The axe is at the end of a short haft, but the blade is about a foot tall. It's a very heavy weapon.

I'm a lot faster than anyone who would choose that type of axe as their weapon. It cleaves the air above me, doing exactly zero harm to anyone.

I spring from my crouch with a raised hand and clobber him across the jaw. His hit points take a dive into the red zone and the KoB knight staggers backwards. I whirl to face the next knight, but he drops his weapon before I can so much as point my sword in his direction.

"Whoa. I'm just here because-"

I don't stick around to find out what he was going to say. I smash him upside the head and run forward as he crumples to the ground. Glancing around, I find that the soldiers had all been dispatched, and that only seven of them are still there on the ground.

I purposely don't look at who's cursor is now red.

Up ahead, Klutz is driving Heathcliff backwards further and further. The shield, polished to a shine when we arrived, is now nicked and dented. I'm amazed at just how damage that shield can absorb.

As I watch, Klutz's sword breaks through the older man's guard and pokes him in the stomach.

No damage.

This fight is unwinnable.

Such disparaging thoughts run through my head for a fleeting second before I come to realize just how bad this is. Heathcliff can't let any of us survive, no matter what. We're all too dangerous. I can never see dad again. Or mom, not that I got along with her that well.

That's the precise moment that Klutz's sword breaks into two pieces.

Time stops as everyone watches the majestic black blade shatters into polygons indistinguishable from those of the former Black Cats.

Klutz falls to his back on the shiny gray floor and Heathcliff looms over him.

"Klutz, whoever you are, I want to leave you this message." Heathcliff crouches down to eye level with the fallen Klutz. "This might be a game, but it's not meant to be played."

This makes me mad. Madder than I think it should have, to be honest.

Heathcliff's shield edge, sharpened to be a blade of its own, comes down on top of a still struggling Klutz, only to be blocked by my blade. I don't remember running up or thrusting the blade out, but it's there nonetheless.

Half a second later, a katana joins my blade in resisting the shield. Klein grunts with the effort, and Silica gives a (frankly pathetic) war cry and stabs him with one of her poisoned daggers.

It has absolutely no effect.

Heathcliff suddenly let's go of his shield and lets the piece of metal fly, driven by Klein's sword and mine into a high arc. He steps out of the range of all of us with practiced ease. He snaps his fingers and a golden sword fills his right hand.

"Asuna." He says calmly, as if he hadn't just stopped being used as sword practice dummy. "Why did you insist on climbing higher? Everything down on the lower floors is better than anything you could find outside. You threw that away in the vague hopes that life would be better on the outside."

"No." I say with an even voice. "I'm doing it because I hate liars." I ready my blade and prepare to fight an unwinnable battle. "You're a lair, Heathcliff."

"What? No 'Leader' anymore?" He smirks nastily. "I'm hurt."

Klutz stands back up, and a bean of brilliant blue light hits him.

We all turn to watch as his hair shortens to about neck length, his arms and legs fill out with muscle, and a black jacket appears suddenly on his shoulders.

Lizbeth's jaw hits the floor beside me. "Wha... Is that Kiri-"

Klutz, or whoever he is, yells something unintelligible and charges Heathcliff _while drawing another sword._ If there had been any doubt before, there was none now.

Klutz had become Kirito. As I stand here in stunned silence, Kirito starts assaulting Heathcliff. While every other strike hit, my former leader's hit points remained perfectly full.

Klein sags to his knees. "What the hell is going on?" He says in a dejected manner. "Everything's just too confusing."

I nod my head in agreement, not that he saw it.

All of us have eyes only for Kirito.

A message pops into view. I blandly poke at it and it expands to fill my vision. Through the slightly transparent window I can see Kirito and Heathcliff still battling.

"Did it work?" was the short message.

I type almost without paying attention to my hands. "No. Kirito's back, but Heathcliff's still immortal."

"Who... Kirito?!" Heathcliff spits. "I killed you!"

Kirito shrugs. "I had someone trying to keep me alive."

"You'll pay for this insult, boy."

Kirito's Demon Sword Gram slices clean through the silver-haired man's neck, but it doesn't have any effect. A few seconds later and another message arrives in my inbox.

"Exactly as planned. Now to install my masterpiece!"

Great. I sag to the ground to join the others. Klein and Lizbeth are holding each other. They both have looks of total... total nothingness. No emotions are being displayed. I can tell that I have the same expression. Today has just been too much. Silica is catatonic, muttering something while Pina and Kuradeel attempt to console her- or at least rouse her. She's unresponsive to their touch.

Emotional burnout.

A chiming sound comes from behind me.

I glance up almost disinterestedly and find Yui, still in Sinon form.

"Oh, you're back." I say half-heartedly.

She nods. "Kikuoka Seijirō initiated a program intended to install Sinon's personality over my own. I corrected the signal and traced in back here." She pauses. "I am sorry for leaving so suddenly. I had multiple conflicting processes that I had to shut down and fix to resume normal functions." She smiles. "I have successfully integrated Sinon's personality into my own."

Despite the situation, I give out a breath of a laugh. "About time."

She ignores that comment and draws her bow. The arrow in her hand glows bright pink before she releases it, and the arrow smashes into Heathcliff's side with enough force to send him out of Kirito's sword range.

The black swordsman turns around and eyes Yui. She waves back cheerfully.

Heathcliff climbs heavily to his feet and glares at the only smiling person on the fiftieth floor. "Who are you? I have no records of you in my database."

Yui draws her arm back, notching another arrow as she goes. She takes careful aim-

Is that letters and numbers floating around her hands?

Heathcliff's eyes go wide as the golden missile flies at him. He sidesteps it just in time to watch it whiz by his face and destroy something behind him. A small "Object: mortal" tag appears over the already disappearing wall.

Heathcliff is stunned for a second before turning back to the archer and speaking a single word aloud.

"Stop."

Yui freezes in place, like when she was switching into Sinon mode.

Heathcliff shakes his head. "I don't know how you managed to convince my failed experiment to come along with you, but you just made my job easier." He clears his throat. "Kill them."

Yui unfreezes and turns to us. She draws the two medium sized blades from off of her hips and stalks towards us, a blank and expressionless look on her face.

"You see, I have all the security codes. I control this system." Heathcliff says. "I don't know how you're expecting to change my server, Seijirō. Everything in it belongs to me. I have ultimate control." He's talking to nobody. His face is pointed upwards.

Yui reaches me first. Her twin, wicked blades raise in the air. Time slows as I watch the two crimson red swords descend towards my throat.

They stop an inch from killing me. One turquoise eye winks. Yui spins around and fires a shot at Heathcliff, and this time he couldn't dodge it.

The golden shot pierces his armor, and a hexagonal window appears over his head.

"Object: Mortal"

He just about has time to utter "Yui what are you do-"

Kirito's swords cut through the air and start slicing into my former leader's body. Angry red lines start appearing, and his health bar starts dropping for the first time I could remember. He had drawn Demon Sword Gram and The Russian, which glimmer with purple light and separate red and blue streaks, respectively.

Kirito starts up a combo, screaming its name as he initializes it.

"STARBURST STREAM!"

His dual blades turn into a blur of death, raining blows down on Heathcliff.

Heathcliff raises his shield and takes the brunt of the attacks on the rounded surface of last line of defense.

The last blow of Starburst Stream connects with the plate mail covered chest of Heathcliff. The Demon Sword Gram fades to intangibility for a fraction of a second as it slips right through Heathcliff's body, the re-materializes. His hit points rapidly start shrinking.

"No... NO! I will NOT allow you young brats ruin my world! I spent my lifetime making this world a reality, and look what you've done! You've doomed an entire ships worth of people to live in a cramped spaceship for the rest of their lives! Out there, pain is real! No magic, no way to recover from almost lethal injuries! The real world pales in comparison!"

Kirito snarls. "It's better than not knowing - living a lie!" He twists the blade, and with a howl, Heathcliff shatters.

Stunned silence for a few seconds. Kirito stays in his spot where he had killed

Interrupted by a slap.

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

I remember- vaguely- my guild of less than a week disappearing in a cloud of shards.

I remember- again, vaguely- Howling in rage and attacking the bloody red figure in front of me.

I don't remember turning back into my old body, but I do remember my muscles expanding as all my old experience points came back and bolstered the work I had done in my new body.

I remember a golden arrow.

And then, in the corner of my eye, I see a red cursor. I'm back to where I started.

Last thing before I regained a sense of my surroundings? A slap to my cheek.

I sprawl backwards, not expecting the blow. My eyes slowly refocus as I look up at Asuna, standing in front of me and looking very, _very _pissed.

"Ow." I say. Not that it had taken that much out of my Hit points, but-

_"How could you?" _She screams.

I sit in stunned silence for a second. "Huh?" I finally manage.

"You... You lied to us!"

"...Yeah?"

She slaps me again.

"You're supposed to be dead! You let us believe you were dead!"

"But-"

"You let ME believe you were dead! Don't you realize how bad it hurt to- How bad it felt when you died? And now you're just BACK?" She laughs with a manic edge. "Does this mean I can get those innocent people you tricked back?"

I wince. "Wait a sec; I didn't get anyone killed-"

"The Moonlit Black Cats are _dead_, Kirito. They got killed because of _you._"

My brain screeches to a halt. "But... That wasn't my fault!"

Asuna crosses her arms and sneers. "I'm sure that will console their mothers."

I slump the rest of the way to the floor. "I couldn't have saved them-"

"You could have told them who you are."

I glare at the girl from my position on the floor. "Then Heathcliff would have found me."

"Oh, Really? And how would that be?"

"Yui. She was lying to us. She works for Heathcliff."

"So, that arrow that made him able to be killed was what, a glitch?"

Huh? I look at the blue-haired girl standing just behind Asuna. She nods once, a slight one.

I sag back down to the ground.

Asuna speaks before I can. "I think you should have stayed dead."

I close my eyes, but not before a single tear leaks out. "I... It wasn't my choice."

"Of course it was! You always have a choice!"

"And what was it that my choice was?" I say wearily.

"You could've chosen to die like everyone else!" Her fists clench so tight that her already pale skin turns whiter. "You could have chosen to just die. Stop causing pain."

"I've done more than cause pain!" I shout, suddenly very angry.

"No, you haven't! Everything you've done, from start to finish, has hurt someone. Me, Your friends, family, and everyone in this world. You ruined everyone's peace of mind, not with only one life but two!"

I stare at her for a second, but my sudden fury drains away too fast for me to continue the stare for long. "Then kill me."

She expresses confusion, replacing the twisted features of her anger. "What?"

"If I'm such a blight, kill me." I say in a detached voice.

"And how would that fix things!" She yells, not really as a question.

"It wouldn't. It would keep me from making any more mistakes." I close my eyes. "I'm so tired of making mistakes. Keeping secrets."

"I think you shouldn't kill him." Yui comments.

I open my eyes a crack and Asuna whirls to face the AI.

"You. You knew, didn't you? You can read minds!"

Yui has her face set into a neutral line. "That isn't-"

"So you were lying to us too! You said there was one hundred floors! You... You're the one who recruited Klutz!"

Yui nods. "That was prudent, since he's had the most experience clearing floors-"

I have to admire how Asuna seems to just plow over Yui's explanation. "I bet you lied about other things too! Maybe what's out there is nothing, like Heathcliff said!"

Yui says nothing for a second. "It has been true that my data has been wrong in the past-"

"So I can't trust you."

Silence. A cold silence.

"Let's go." Asuna says over her shoulder. Klein, Kuradeel, Lizbeth and Silica look at her in bewilderment. She points to something past me in the other direction. I glance over and see a podium with a large red button on top.

Asuna strides over and hits the button before anyone can protest.

A message appears in front of my eyes, saying that the server is shutting down. The world above me starts to crack and fall in chunks. They fall almost lazily, the great distance making the smallest visible chunks take a while to reach us.

Asuna grabs everyone but Yui and I and teleports out with a corridor crystal. I have no idea where it took her, but she wasn't going to be crushed by debris now.

Yui tries to crouch down next to me, but a hole is punched through her form, an invisible blow that stops her in her tracks and leaves a good sized hole in her side. She has time to glance down before the second blow hits, taking away the top half of her torso. Yui is gone within a second, and then I'm alone on the fiftieth floor.

"Well. Yui's... gone. Asuna and the others hate me." I murmur to nobody. Larger chunks crash around me, shaking the ground.

I whisper in a voice that nobody could hear. "I'm sorry."

And then the rock collides with the floor.

* * *

Light. Pain. Crushing my chest.

I wasn't expecting to wake up from that, but it looks like I did.

I open my eyes, but I see nothing. Everything is a blur, bright and harsh.

I certainly feel like I had been crushed by falling castle.

I raise my hand to block out the light, but my arm is glued to the table.

No, not glued. I'm just too weak to move.

I don't know how I know this, but I do.

A steady beep-beep-beep comes from next to me. Turning my head to look is an agony, but I eventually see a box with lots of numbers and a few lines that jump around periodically. I twist my head to the other side and see a long metal pole with some clear fluid and a pipe. I trace the pipe down into the crook of my left arm. The pipe disappears into my arm, so presumably that was a good thing?

A door hisses open and a large blur comes and sits next to me.

"Kazuto Kirigaya, correct?"

I say yes. It sounds like "yegh" but I meant yes. Whoever was out there seemed to understand.

"Do you know what's going on?" The voice asks.

Well, the last thing I can recall is seeing…

Oh god. All of the Moonlit Black Cats. And I couldn't save them. Asuna's angry at me. Everyone else... I have no idea.

Water wells up in my eyes, ironically making my sight clearer for a fraction of a second before they blurred again.

"Kazuto?"

"Mnnn"

"I'll take that as no. Okay. We're doing our best to reconstruct your lungs and muscles, but your pod was broken. I don't know why the tech teams didn't report it, but none of the muscle stimulation procedures were working, and… Frankly, you're the worst off of everyone out of the pods." The voice pauses. "Not that everyone else was happy about it, but once they learned that there was no threat of monsters, most of the relaxed. Several people have come to see you, but…"

He shakes what I assume is his head. "Kazuto, nobody likes you, with three exceptions. Your parents, and this one right here."

He slides back and something blue and soft gives me a hug. When it moves, I can hear a faint whine.

"Kirito… You're alright!"

The strange voice gets my eyes to focus. A girl with blue green hair tied up into twin ponytails reaching down to her waist is standing there. She wears a black dress with strange icons all over it. And then I lose focus again.

The human, male blur gestures to the blue-haired girl. "In case you didn't figure it out, this is Yui's new body. I made if for a different AI, but alas, it didn't work out as intended."

"Y-Yui." I manage to make out.

She nods. "I was saved in the last moment by Sinon's retrieval code. I was uploaded into your nerve gear and then downloaded into this body." She hesitates. "I'm sorry for misinforming you."

I try to shrug, but it doesn't work. "Ish mmkay."

Yui sits down next to me. "I was given false information to help find any traitors to Heathcliff." She blinks. "It did work, in a way."

I sigh and close my eyes. "Sho, how bad ish it out here?" My mouth slowly starts to catch up to my thoughts.

The man who had arrived first speaks up. "It's actually quite good compared to the first time a simulation was broken. Mostly, everyone accepted it without too much fuss. It seems that someone had managed to get a copy of the original player's handbook, and they had all read it. Most of them just let us tell them what to do."

"Aren't they all like thish?" I twitch my hand, and that gets the "body not working" point across.

He shakes his head. I can tell it's his head now. "Your suspension tube was faulty. Everyone else's pods kept their bodies in the same shape as they were in inside Aincrad. Your pod malfunctioned, and your body is typical of what happens when someone forgets to exercise properly in zero gravity."

I close my eyes once again, blocking out the painful, blurry light. "Sho it's only me."

He grunts. "Yes. And frankly, that's for the best. I have some time to talk to you before Asuna tears you to bits."

"Why's that?"

"You're a hero to this station, Kirigaya. We were so understaffed that we were shutting down some of the outer portions of the ship just to be able to maintain the ship. With your help, we have it staffed again. To your fellow Aincradians, you're the villain who stole them from their comfortable lives, even if it was a false life. People loathe change, and you provided them with one hell of a large change."

He takes a deep breath. "You're going to be in pain for quite a while. At least a month. We could stick you back inside the tubes, but you wouldn't want to be in there for that long without Aincrad, would you?"

I shake my head, even this slight movement hurting my spine.

"Didn't think so." He hesitates, and Yui shifts to lie beside me. Her body is cold, but oddly comforting. "I have an idea, but you're not going to like it much."

"Jusht tell me. I'm too tired to care mush."

"Okay." He clears his throat. "There used to be seven simulations running. Now, with Aincrad shut down, there's only five left. I told you one shut down before yours, but that ended... poorly. I want you to go into one of the other simulations and let the tube do its job while you fix up another world."

"Another world..." I muse. "Whash it like?"

"It's very bad. Lots of fighting between factions, a war raging for a century."

"Shoundsh pleashant."

"It gets better. There's an extremely easy win condition for that simulation, but due to the war, nobody is willing to compromise and work together just to achieve it. Unlike Aincrad, this simulation is closer to a ring with a spire in the center. At the top of that spire is the end button. The thing is, it needs five people to get there, one from each of the five clans."

I arch an eyebrow over a still closed eye.

"It's not much like Aincrad. There's a lot of items and theory I'm going to have to tell you about before you go in, and once you're in..."

Yui continues where he left off. "You can't come back out."

I open my eyes a fraction. "What's that mean?"

"It means that once you're consciousness gets locked into the new simulation, we can't get you back out. If you throw yourself into this new danger, I can't guarantee you'll survive."

"Wait." I frown. "You're saying that if I join this new simulation, I won't be able to get out?"

He nods. "That's why we didn't just start pulling out people from the simulation when we realized how bad our crew was suffering in terms of numbers. If we could just pull people out, we wouldn't have needed to get you involved in rescuing yourself. Hell, we'd probably have shut down all the simulations well before now, if we could. They were designed so we couldn't do that."

"But... You guys pulled me out a few times!"

"That was because of a system malfunction. You still had- well, have- a chip in your spinal connector that can kill you when the proper signal is sent. When you were released for your update and those errors, the simulation allowed for a full three hours of downtime for us to work before it decided you were a threat and killed you for leaving in an unauthorized fashion. The same for each of the other simulations, not just Aincrad."

"So, if I went into this new simulation, I would be subject to this kill thing in my spine?" Not really sure what a spine is, but I can ask Yui later.

The man nods. I still can't see any features on his face, but I can tell he's wearing glasses from the way he keeps pushing them up. "I would like to let you consider this for a while. I expect you wouldn't like to do this, but I feel it's necessary."

"I'll do it."

He coughs. "Just like that? I still have yet to prepare information that will help you in this new world."

I shrug, and this time it works. Kinda. I think both shoulders twitched. "I'm going to spend a long time in a jar anyway, right? I might as well be somewhere that I don't have a chance of running into anyone I know in there."

The man coughs again and looks away.

Yui sits up. "Count me in. I'll go with him."

The man sighs. "Okay, I'll be back in a few hours. Get some sleep and I'll do some research. I'll give you two a full report when you wake up."

He walks out of the slides off the bed and turns to face me. "I will take my leave as well. Get some sleep."

I close my eyes and drift away into painless oblivion.

* * *

I'm awakened by a tug on my shoulder. I look up to see Yui looking back with concerned eyes.

"Asuna and the others have gone missing." She says in her flat monotone she always uses when not sure how to react.

Frankly, I don't know either. I'm not happy; though I should be glad they aren't succeeding in ripping me to shreds. Another part of me feels sorry for them and that's just kind of absurd after what happened.

The man from before (I assume) strides in. "Yes, they have, but then they got found. Someone put them into the capsules for the simulation I was going to send you into."

I ponder this for a second. "What does that mean for me?"

He shakes his head. "Nothing, but if you don't go in there, there's a good chance we won't see any of them again."

I sigh. "Fine. Get me to one of these pods, and talk to me on the way."

* * *

Several hours later, I open my eyes to behold a barren world. It's a blackened, twisted metal structure that reeks of neglect. Smoke pours out of gaps in the metal sheeting beneath my feet.

I'm currently inside another simulation, this one called "Gunstorm." A gun is a device which throws metal, very fast and precisely, and it's the primary source of death in this simulation.

I can hear the echoing booms coming from the firearms below me.

Scanning the horizon, I can see the central spire. It certainly lives up to its name, pointing to the heavens.

After being explained the clan system, really just telling me what I would be good at if I joined this group or that one, I had opted to go for Special Forces.

Of the five branches, Special Forces seems to be the closest to what I was used to. The other four, Air Force, Army, Navy and Coast Guard, had their talents, but none of them suited my mission so much as the SF.

I check my inventory. A small knife, two magazines and a pistol, plus about thirty bullets. Already equipped I have some basic stealth gear, black on black with a visor of some sort that I can lower to see in the dark.

Yui's voice comes from the device on my head. I drop the thing over my eyes and see Yui's smiling face.

"Yui? What are you doing in there?"

"I can't be a human like in the previous simulation, since this one was built without an AI subroutine. To sneak me in, I had to pretend to be one of the navigational aid programs. I'll live inside your visor and give you tactical advice, okay?"

I nod. Not much I could do about it, I guess.

"So, where to?" I ask.

A glowing green arrow appears right in front of me, just high enough to avoid it interfering with how well I can navigate. I follow the arrow to an intersection with five points. Well, six if you include the one I came from.

Each of them has a different crest. Each of the crests has lots of visible artwork, and they have names on them.

"Marines." I read the closest one out loud. I continue to look at it and address Yui. "Yui, where am I supposed to go?"

She point down a path. "I think you should head to a friendly place first. Then you can learn something before going into battle."

I nod. Sound advice.

* * *

At least, it would have been. I did follow the path to the SF. I did end up finding more SF members before encountering anyone else. I had been briefed on the uniforms of each of the branches, so I knew they weren't enemies.

They didn't have the same opinion.

The leader pokes me in the back with his gun. "Keep moving!" He barks.

I grumble and continue to shuffle. My legs are bound by chains, and I can't go that fast.

Doesn't stop him from poking me in the back repeatedly.

As I shuffle along, I pay attention to all the details of the place. Signs telling anyone where the mess hall and the hospital are, dimly lit corridors that nobody sees to go through, everything immaculate and metal.

Of course, then again, if my mental map I'm constructing was accurate, we've been going around in circles.

Finally, the guard with the gun lowers it and shoves me roughly forward into a dark room. I whirl to face him, but the door closes before I can so much as growl.

"Who do we have here?" asks an unfamiliar voice.

I turn around slowly to find that spotlights had been turned on and were focused on five people sitting in chairs. Four of them are unknowns, but the one sitting in the center is wearing some special kimono for some reason. The others all look like assassins. The fifth-

Understandably, I was confused at first, but then her voice confirmed it. I mean, SF was supposed to be about being stealthy, right? Underhanded. Why would she-

"Hello, Kirito!" Says Silica.


	18. Chapter 18: Sky Diving

I would like to apologize for the massive gap between chapters. There was a small issue I hadn't considered when I made that last update.

I had to make the structure of Gunstorm from scratch.

Aincrad was based off of, well, Aincrad. I modified some rules here and there, but in general it was Aincrad. Gunstorm is a combination of ALO and GGO that I had to mess around with until I got it to my liking, then plot out the story so I don't derail myself.

Then there was the issue of writers block, but I fought through it.

Finally, I hope you enjoy!

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

I stand at the edge of a metal platform high in the air. Wind whips at me and threatens to sweep me out, along with the other inhabitants of this helipopter or whatever they call it. Of course, everyone else has those parachute things Yui had insisted I buy back at the first NPC shop I had come across.

Mine had been confiscated.

Silica walks up behind me. In her hand is something small, silver, and has the hole pointed towards me. It looks like a shorter version of the ".357" that I had, once again, bought earlier only to have it confiscated.

"For the crime of attempting to alter the balance of power inside this simulation, you are hereby sentenced to death." She reads off of a small glowing rectangle.

I remain silent. I had already pointed out why that charge was wrong several times, to no avail.

"The sentence will be carried out immediately. You will be thrown from a helicopter without a parachute."

I glare at the girl who was at home with her dragons. I idly wonder if they used to do this by dragon on floor 13 back when floor 13 still existed. I turn back and look out the open door of the helicopter to the metal "ground" far, far below.

This world is significantly larger than any one floor in Aincrad, roughly 100 kilometers from the center spire in any direction. Instead, it houses its population in layers. The top layers are where most of the trade goes on, and the further down you go the rarer the weapons you can find. Up here in the sky though, there's nothing but a helicopter.

I got all this information secondhand from Yui, who has been chattering random information at me non-stop since I was "caught" yesterday. Among some of the other things I learned about: Guns, the hole is where death comes from, so don't point it at your own face, bullets are really small arrows and guns are crossbows with massive range, there's more of Yui, just stupider, like monkeys to us...

So essentially this world is like a particularly vicious upgrade to Aincrad, but with an entirely different goal.

Oh yeah, swords are no longer in use. Only daggers are available, and those are extremely useless.

"Sayonara, Kirito."

_BANG_

Gunshots are loud, and in the confines of the helicopter it takes a single point of health off my health bar, which measures only 32 hit points in total. Damage is a lot smaller in this simulation.

The gunshot though, that takes an extra five points off. Now down to 26 and with a searing pain in my ankle where the bullet entered, I lose my balance and take an involuntary step forwards. Right out of the helicopter.

The world slows down as I twist in the air. The door of the helicopter comes into sight. Inside, Silica's short gun is smoking next to her satisfied face. The other three soldiers that had escorted me up here are out of sight deeper inside the vehicle. As I watch, Silica turns and the ramp I was standing on starts to close.

And now I'm falling.

Falling, wind rushing past my ears. I scream, but I barely hear myself. The ground doesn't seem to be moving towards me, yet. I know from floor thirteen of Aincrad that this state of affairs will not last very long.

Mental inventory: I have nothing but a set of clothes on me.

How useful.

Stats? Completely reset, since this is a different system. I kept my agility and speed scores though, since they're apparently the same data values, or something.

Ask Yui for me, since I'm pretty sure a fall from several kilometers up will do more than 26 points of damage.

So, you're probably wondering what happened to Silica, right? Why she literally just shot me out of a helicopter, when seemingly yesterday she was a happy little girl with her pet dragon, Pina.

Well, Pina is the problem.

Silica had quite an attachment to the dragon, and she apparently had a panic attack when she got out of the simulation. According to Yui, it was bad. Silica is very strong for a thirteen year old girl, just like all of the former Aincrad residents. She's also insanely quick and good with small, pointy objects.

I'm told that she almost killed three people before she was put under.

Then, Asuna and the rest of her impromptu team sans me met to discuss what to do with Silica. Seijirō is the one that came up with the idea though, the idea of giving Silica her pet back. Put her in a different simulation and give her Pina back.

I'm told it took a while to get Pina back, since "they" had to recreate him from scratch. In fact, it took three month.

I was lying in a hospital bed, unaware of my surroundings for three months.

And what's-his-face and Yui lied to me, saying they had gone missing. If they'd been in here three months, then there should have been somebody who noticed they were missing before then, right?

Either way, I'm being lied to.

Huh, the ground is a _lot _closer now. Interestingly, the metal twists upward into spikes, giving me a temporary flashback to floor thirteen.

Anyway, Asuna and the rest decided to follow Silica into the simulation. They've been in here for those three months, along with approximately ten percent of the Aincrad citizens. The ones that couldn't stand living in the real world.

I wonder what death feels like in this world. In Aincrad, everything slowly faded to black, allowing me to see Heathcliff's triumphant smile as I died. Of course, I was saved by Seijirō. Those metal scraps are starting to look _really _bad.

I managed to survive all of forty-eight hours in this simulation. I spawned in, bought stuff, walked to a base, got thrown in a cell for "killing a pet," A charge flipped to "disturbing the balance of the five blah blah blah" once Silica's superiors told her that pets are not considered sentient beings.

Either way, Silica was gunning for my head. I'm just glad her sniper skill is as low as it is, or else I might've ended my journey while still walking up to the fort that houses the special operations military branch.

I glance down. The field of twisted metal stretches in all directions. The only landmark I can see from this height is the central spire.

Then impact.

A long I-beam spears through my chest, instantly draining my hit points to zero.

The world goes completely dark. A message, hanging in the darkness informs me that I am dead. Thanks, but the hole in my chest was already a dead giveaway.

Last time I died, the world kinda faded out. And then some really weird stuff happened outside the simulation, and I was put into someone else's body, essentially. This time, nothing was happening. Just the message in front and darkness all around.

So, being dead is an empty void.

Fan-freaking-tastic.

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

A call comes in on the device strapped to my arm. It's Silica. I answer, allowing a picture of her face to pop up on my screen. Presumably, my handsome face would be appearing on her arm at the same time.

"Hey Silica."

"Hi, Klein! How are things in the Navy?"

I look down at the shiny new ballistic personnel carrier that my superiors had told me to polish, despite the fast it was impeccable and all polishing would do was reduce the value of the polishing supplies. "It's great. Doing lots of things. You still in that ninja group?"

She gives me a big nod. "I got to execute a special prisoner today!"

I drop the polishing rag, and watch mournfully as it falls into a crack between the pod-like contraption and the mounting rack that holds in place relative to our ship. "Silica, you know it's kinda scary when you say it so cheerfully."

She grins. "It was a _very_ special prisoner."

I sigh and lean back against the bulkhead. Let's see, Henrietta's in Army territory, so Silica couldn't have captured her. Arnold's in the jungle scouting the Coast Guard, since rumor is hey moved to that volcano island to escape us. I don't know about any other high profile targets out on missions, and none in her area.

"Okay, I give up. Who is it?"

"Kirito!"

I bolt upright, incidentally smashing my forehead into the low beam that stretched across the missile bay.

"Klein, are you alrig-"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Did you say Kirito?"

She nods enthusiastically. "I can't believe it. He tried to take Pina away from me again!"

"That's strange. Last I saw of him, he was unable to even move."

Silica huffs. "Yeah, whatever. He's dead now, so we should forget him."

Wow. Wasn't Silica innocent when we first met her? Now she's getting into villain territory.

"Mmm. Say, have you talked to Asuna recently? I can't seem to reach her."

Silica pauses before speaking. "No, she's doing something with Kuradeel. I think they went down to find some better weapons."

"Hey, they promised me that I could go with them next time!"

Silica sticks her tongue out. "Too bad."

I grab the cleaning cloth and return to polishing the missile. "Whatever. They can do what they want, as long as they stay in their territory."

"Te~echnically, since they're both in the army, they own all the land, and everyone else is infringing upon their domain." Silica sings out the first bit.

"You know what I mean." I stand up into a half-crouch carefully and maneuver around the missile. "Any news from Lizbeth?"

Silica's eyebrows furrow. "She didn't tell you?"

I sit back against the wall and glumly stare at the image on my arm. "She's... we're not talking right now."

"What did you do?"

"Hey! It's no fair assuming it's MY f-"

_"What did you do?"_

"Fine. It... I asked her to join the Navy instead of staying with the Air Force, 'cause we're a couple now, right? Well, apparently, she hates boats. Like I had any idea. Then she turns it around on me and asks me to join the Air Force. I... may have told her that if she wasn't willing to join up with me, then... yeah." I end lamely.

"Wow. You're lucky if she doesn't hunt you down and kill you."

I nod. "Which is why my boss has me here polishing missiles, so that personal conflicts don't devolve into a war."

Silica sighs. "But it's gotten so _boring_ without anyone doing anything. A war would be a pleasant change of pace."

"Don't even joke about that." I stretch out over the shell of my target to polish the top. "If we accidentally caused a war, we'd lose all of our lives before the veterans here lost one."

Silica nods. "I know what you mean. Except I don't, since I'm safe here in our base."

Right. Suddenly, a thought strikes me.

"So, Silica, did you use up all of Kirito's live before you executed him, or...?"

"Uh... oops?"

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

The text informing me of my death went away after a minute or two, replaced with more text asking me if I want to continue.

Continue exist in this void, or continue falling to my doom? Or continue with the simulation?

The only logical choice would be to continue the simulation, but then that means...

I press yes. Might as well.

So, I can die in here as many times as I want?

As if in answer, five little stick men appear in front of me. The one to the far right suddenly splays out on the ground and lies in a pool of blood.

I'm going to assume that killing all of these guys is bad.

Slowly, the world returns to color, and I recognize my surroundings pretty fast. I'm back in the Special Operations base.

Nobody's around, so now would be a good time to leave.

Though... I should probably go get Yui. She obviously needs to tell me more things if she hadn't managed to get to something as important as _dying isn't permanent here _in the day I had walked towards the Spec Ops base.

In fact, they had a few things to answer for, Yui and that chrysanthemum guy both.

I open my menu with the same finger pinch that was standard in Aincrad and looked at the map of the base. The item lockup is two floors down, past two checkpoints.

Small mercies, I revived with a stealth suit common to all Special Operations members. I look at its capabilities quickly, looking for the one function I really needed right now.

Once I found it, I pressed the button and watched as the skintight suit blurred and turned see-through. Almost. I could see a blue edge along the edge of the suit, denoting where the suit ends and the real empty air began. Thankfully, this small detail is hard to see if nobody's looking for it.

The cloaking function works for ten minutes standing still, and five while moving before depleting completely. Once it's drained, it will take about a minute to fully recharge. That means I will have to stop and let the cloak recharge at random intervals.

Looking at the map again, still invisible, I see that this isn't going to be a picnic. There's a guarded post between me and Yui's visor, along with some other traps. If I didn't know where they were I would be screwed right from the start, but as it is I still have my work cut out for me. That's on top of the patrolling guards.

What, are these guys expecting an invasion? The Spec Ops building is hidden, and all the good spies are here.

Then again, I'm currently attempting to circumvent these defenses, so... not a total waste on their part.

I check the clock that had appeared in the lower right corner of my vision as soon as I started the cloaking system. Eight and a half minutes, which is about four minutes while moving.

I slowly lower myself into a crouch and head for the door. According to the map, there should be a sensor mounted to the wall just behind the door frame that triggers a gout of flame to fry me.

The sensor is about chest level when I stand up, so if I remain low I should be fine.

I flatten myself against the wall and peek around the door. Inside is a series of lockers, holding the gear everyone else wasn't currently using. Nobody is currently here. I slide into the room, eyes focused on the round white object affixed to the wall. It has a blinking green light that has a slow rhythm of on and off that is deceptively calm.

Once past the sensors range (plus an additional ten feet, for safety's sake) I stand up and attempt to open a locker labeled "Thompson, P."

It's locked. It has no visible lock to pick, but instead has a black panel with a handprint drawn on it. Without thinking, I put my hand on the panel.

[ERROR: HANDPRINT UNREADABLE]

I jump as the black panel flashes red and a loud beep emanates. I glance around frantically. Someone probably heard that, or they can see it somewhere else. Yui said something about being able to see entire buildings in one room.

There, in the corner between the two sets of lockers. It'll be a tight squeeze, but I can fit into a foot square hole. There I can turn off my suit-

I get to the top of the locker currently beeping before I hear footsteps coming. In my haste to get out of sight, my right hand misses the second set of lockers.

Thus, I end up upside-down in a square hole formed by a corner of the room and two foot wide lockers.

At least I'm hidden. I worm my hand around and manage to disable the cloak. The clock changes from counting time to cloak failure to a count until it's fully charged.

Two voices arrive into the room, mostly inaudible until they rounded the corner.

"I tell you, we have ghosts." A young male voice says with insistence.

"I told you, ghosts don't exist. If they did, we would see at least _some _evidence of... their presence..." a slightly older voice starts resignedly, but tapers off.

"Why is my locker beeping?" comes the first voice.

"Did someone try to access it?"

"No, if there was anyone, we would have seen them on our last sweep."

The older guy sighs. "Let's do a quick sweep. Make sure nobody is hiding with their cloak."

Something makes a heavy "clink side and a purple glow filters through the gap between the lockers. The purple light swings around, but doesn't detect me.

"Nobody here." The older one grunts. Then I hear him activate his radio. "Hotel, do you see anybody in the entrance hall or locker areas aside from us? Peyton's locker's alarm was set off."

A second of silence. A slightly distorted voice replies. "Nope, don't see anybody. Maybe it was a ghost?" The distorted voice chuckles.

"Ha, very funny. You and Peyton need to grow up."

Peyton speaks up. "But, then who did this to my locker?"

The older guy sighs exasperatedly. "It's probably a glitch. We've had some problems with several systems recently."

"The ghosts of our victims are coming back to haunt us!" Peyton yells.

"Uhg. Call maintenance down here and let's go back to looking for actual threats, okay?"

The distorted voice sounds like he's barely restraining his laughter. "Sure, I'll be there in ten minutes. Oh, Tell Peyton that if there _is_ any ghosts, they're his fault for botching that last raid."

Peyton wails and runs out of the room.

"Oh, for the love of- If this is a prank, I'm going to get him demoted." The second guard lumbers after Peyton in a much more leisurely pace.

Now's my chance. I push against the floor with both of my hands and hook my heels over the edge of the lockers.

I'm glad my stats carried over, because I needed all of my strength just to pull myself out of there. My cloak had long since charged back to full, so I activate it and head for the opposite doorway I had entered from.

I almost step right out in front of another chest-high sensor.

Since I would rather avoid char-broiled Kirito, I quickly duck back into the locker room and bring the map back up.

That trap, had it triggered, would have locked me in that hall until someone was able to check out the situation from outside, according to the trap database. I had told Yui to download that to me for me to review while she was gone, and boy am I glad I had thought to do that. On the map, it's only labeled as "Trap variant 58" which is a lot less informative.

So. Onwards and downwards.

I carefully navigate the next few rooms, always finding a spot to hide whenever the guards come around on patrol. Peyton and his buddy make several passes, and that flashlight they carry can supposedly see through cloaks. They shine it in all the obvious corners, so I had to get creative to hide. The ceiling in this place is made of white panels that just push up to reveal about a foot high area that is perfect for crawling around in. Unfortunately, there are large sections blocked off by walls, so I have to climb down every five minutes to slip through a doorway. Still, through repeating this process of hiding and moving while cloaked, I manage to cross the entirety of the first floor in about forty-five minutes.

If I had been sprinting, I would've made it in about five minutes, if that. Of course, I would be charred meat as well, but that's beside the point.

The stairway down is shaping to be a large problem, though.

In addition to the patrolling guards, there are two guards stationed at the entrance to the stairwell, and both of them are staring at the elevator doors opposite the stairs. I immediately spot a weakness in their defense, but it's not one I can use being on this side of them. There's nothing guarding their backs, at least according to the floor plans.

I sit in a corner sandwiched between two benches. Not perfect cover, but it hides me from the stationary guards' sight. My cloak still has five minutes of charge left if I stay still. I slowly move my head around to see if I can figure out something. There's not much here, probably to allow for clean lines of sight almost anywhere in the room.

Somebody put a tree in the far corner. Not sure why, but it's there.

Between the guards and the staircase is a clear door that opens only through using a keycard that automatically appears in the inventory of all members of Special Operations. I had one for about fifteen minutes before I got all my stuff taken away. I can see that both of the guards have one, displayed above their right chest pocket, though I can't see the names well from my position.

The first impulse I have is to go back and try to get a disguise somehow. The logistics of "somehow" shot down that idea pretty fast. The lockers are impossible for me to open, and the patrolling guards are in packs of two. Besides, the suits don't have visors or anything, so I couldn't hide my face effectively.

Three minutes left on my suit. I stand up slowly and step over the benches, heading back the way I came. I slide into the corner I had used before entering the stairwell and turn off the cloak.

The slight haze I had begun to notice that accompanied the cloak vanishes. While I'm glad it covers my face without making me blind, the haze makes my eyes hurt.

Footsteps come closer, and Peyton's voice comes back into audible range.

"...then you would see it?"

The older man (his badge is twisted around backwards so all I can see is the back) grunts. "Lay off."

"Oh, c'mon, it's not like it'll hurt you!"

"When you say it like that I get more suspicious."

The duo come into view, pause a second before nodding to the two guarding the stairs, and turn back.

"No, see, I've been practicing all night. I got it down pat. First, you have to hold the detcord like this..."

If I had learned anything from crawling through the vents, it was that Peyton doesn't shut up, and his partner has the patience of a stone statue.

Now that their backs are turned, I turn the cloak back on, though it's not quite fully charged yet. I walk softly into the room and watch the two guards. One of them keeps glancing at his watch.

"He should be here." He mutters.

The other one sighs and lets the muzzle of his big gun point downwards. "He's _never _on time. Why would today be the exception?"

"Today I asked him to be early so I could go on a date."

"You? On a date? With who?"

"I met this chick in the city. She's real cute and is part of the Air Force. She thinks I'm just a civilian though." He sighs. "It's annoying how everything we do has to be secretive. I'm surprised we still even have members."

"Ah, then you didn't hear about today's broadcast. The General decided to let the outsider execute that guy who wanted to end the simulation. She's broadcasting it so everybody can see that we're doing things even while everybody else is sitting around waiting for somebody to crack." Dateless says.

"When is this broadcast?"

Dateless looks the clock on the wall. "It should have been over half an hour ago."

Guy-with-a-date sighs. "That means-"

"Sorry I'm late!"

A new, much younger boy skids to a stop behind the barrier, panting to catch his breath.

"Yep." deadpans Dateless. "Hurry up and get your card out. Mister Casanova here has a date to get to."

The new arrival fumbles around for a few seconds before pulling forth his keycard. He holds it up to the panel on his side of the glass barrier.

It's now or never. I get as close as I dare to the three guards as Dateless picks his card off of his pocket and turns to the door.

The new guy runs in, and nods to "Casanova." I shift sideways quietly and slowly cross between the guards and the door. The doors are still open, and I get halfway through them when I trip.

It wasn't a trap. It wasn't a security measure or guard. It was the stupid door frame, which had a funky edge because of the way the glass panels slid away.

I stumble headfirst down the stairs, causing a loud bang each time I land on a step.

It also hurt like hell, but that's not important right now.

"Who's there?" Calls one of the guards.

Even if I wanted to answer, I wouldn't have had time. The young guy had whipped out the flashlight with the purple light and aimed it down the stairs. Rather than waiting to be caught, I roll desperately to the side, and barely get away before the beam illuminates the entirety of the bottom of the staircase.

The countdown to cloak failure reaches zero, and suddenly I'm visible. Now I'm really glad I had rolled out of sight.

I can still hear the guards talking though.

"Don't worry, I'll check it out. I was heading that way anyway."

Steps come down the stairs, along with a low muttering. "I was supposed to be outside of the station right now, but nooooo. God, I hate being a guard. If I was a field agent, I would at least be free of his inanities."

He peeks around the corner, shining a regular flashlight all around.

I hold my breath.

"Nobody here. I bet it was the pipes clogging again. We need better maintenance crews."

The flashlight clicks off the footsteps fade away.

I slowly let my feet swing from their position in the ceiling and drop down to the floor. That had been unnerving.

I sink into the corner, the tension of the past few minutes draining out of me and leaving me weak and my fingers buzzing. The counter on the side of my screen slowly ticks down as the cloak recharges itself.

Once the numbness leaves my fingers, I open my menu. Okay, the place where Yui is being kept is on this floor, and the security is a lot less than it was on the top two floors. I can do this.

I climb to my feet and activate the cloak. Time to rescue an AI.

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

Finally done polishing the missile thing, I climb out of the cramped space and into the main section of the cargo hold. Silica had botched killing Kirito, and to tell the truth I'm not sure whether or not I'm glad she did.

I've been Kirito's friend since way before he knew anyone else in this simulation, even Lizbeth.

If you ask me, I would say he had to grow up too fast. He was always trying to help people back in Aincrad when he wasn't training. If someone wanted help cutting wood or making something, he would be there if he could.

Something changed on the day he got his update, or maybe after. He did save our _glorious_ leader Asuna that day, so he was still helping people. The next time I saw him, though, something had changed. That wall, the front lines. Something must have happened to him there, because his eyes we're never the same. I did notice at the time, but I figured... I don't know what I figured. Then he went and killed someone. Yes, it was in defense of his friends, but he still got banished.

I wonder where Thinker is now. He's the one that sent Kirito on his crusade to the top floors. Hopefully, he's still alive and living in the real world.

The real world. It's kind of surreal really. There's no health bars, no potions to instantly return all of your hit points, teleportation is considered impossible, and weapons are highly restricted. The people there don't exactly look like us, either. Their eyes are too small, and their hair color range is a lot smaller than ours is.

Someone had explained to me that the vats we had been imprisoned in had been slightly modifying our genes while we were inside the simulation, and three generations was apparently plenty to start seeing results. Supposedly, only browns and reds are "natural" and the blues, purples and greens I had grown up with are the product of the vat. Lizbeth's hair is also supposedly an unnatural color, being pink. Even my bright red mop of hair was considered unnatural, the reddest natural hair being a light orange.

There are a few more changes like more eye colors, something to do with women that went straight over my head, and self-adjusting metabolisms. I am told that we would be any nerd's dream if we were back on earth.

Earth is where we came from. I wasn't told much about it, but I got the impression that we didn't leave because we wanted to. We've been travelling through space, just like Yui said, just not where she said.

When we got out, Asuna found all of us in the crowd of people leaving the tubes. Lizbeth, Kuradeel and I were just kinda standing around, looking through the crowds with astonishment. There were so many people, all residents of Aincrad.

Almost every single one was cursing Kirito under their breath.

When Asuna found me, she grabbed me by the shoulder and hauled me into and through the crowd towards a pod with several people that I now know are unmodified trying to coax someone out.

It was Silica, who had lost her connection to her dragon for the first time. She had once told me about her link to her dragon, a way they could always tell where their partners are. Silica had told me back in the forest base we captured Kirito at that when the bond breaks because of the death of one of the two with the bond, the second will sometimes commit suicide because of how painful it was.

Right then, Silica was feeling that pain.

I had just stared as Lizbeth and Asuna tried to comfort the increasingly hysterical girl, Kuradeel just as lost as I was. They finally had to stab her with a paralysis knife they called a syringe to make her calm down, at which point Asuna told us all what we were going to do.

She told us that she had seen Kirito get moved by a tall guy with black hair who was wearing the same stuff as the rest of the unmodified people. She told us to go find out who he is.

It turned out that Kirito was using this guy's body after his own died to Heathcliff. This Kikuoka Seijirō is one of the geneticists involved with making sure that the changes being made to us weren't cause for worry. Then, when the population of the station had grown too low, he had secretly manipulated events to allow Kirito to destroy the Aincrad server.

Asuna had almost strangled him before we pulled her off of him.

He let us see Kirito through a glass pane. He looked very, very bad. While everyone else still had their muscles from inside the simulation (Another genetic change, we're all about twice as strong as the average human if we had a decent strength stat) he looked like a corpse with his skin stretched across his frame. From my position over twenty feet away I could count his ribs. His head was bald, and several other things were wrong with him. Seijirō told us that most of the medicines they normally would have used to speed up his recovery would cause him to have an allergic reaction, which apparently means that some things we can eat are poisonous to him.

Asuna lost a bit of her fire after that. She stopped muttering under her breath and started wandering around our massive new home.

It's quite impressive too. There aren't towns like in Aincrad, but there are sections like the bases in this new server, Gunstorm. In fact, since Gunstorm was supposed to be modeled after the planet we had left, the technology and way of organizing the buildings architecture are roughly the same.

Asuna had found Gunstorm's section of the ship after about eight days of wandering around. She led all five of us, carrying a still-drugged Silica on her back, to what looked disturbingly like the place we had emerged from. This one is still full though. All around us, there are the pods we came from with people in them. The lights in this area were off, since there wasn't supposed to be anyone in here to need them.

Asuna told us she had spoken with Seijirō. He told her that he would cover for our absence, and that he would attempt to reconstruct Pina for Silica. Asuna had decided as group leader (A position she had just assumed. Then again, none of us challenged her...) that we would let Silica have her bond back.

We would be entering Gunstorm, and we would likely never leave.

Lizbeth, Kuradeel and I had looked at each other and individually decided we would go.

We followed her in here, and...

Silica got her pet back, but I lost whatever I had with Lizbeth. We had agreed to all go into different branches of this military to scout around, and then we learned of the mutual hostility and the defection system. Kuradeel had defected from the Coast Guard to the Army to be with Asuna.

And now Kirito's back, and trying to get everyone out. Again.

I'm not sure how to feel about him anymore, since... I don't know he seems out of my reach. Like his concerns are a level above mine.

He's no longer the boy I once took hunting on floor five, that's for sure.

Above me, the loudspeaker squawks, jarring me out of my thoughts.

"Klein, please report to the Secretary's office immediately."

Called to the boss's office?

This can't be good.

I quickly make my way up to the bridge of the vessel I am stationed on, and snap off a salute to the man in charge, Secretary of the Navy Raybus May.

"Sir."

"At ease. I wanted to verify something with you." He motions to a computer screen. I peer at it and take in a sharp breath.

"I take it you recognize him?"

On screen is a picture of Kirito. Below the picture are the words that seal his fate.

"Capture or Kill on sight. Reward: $1.4 billion to be paid out by the Special Forces."

"Well, you're now in charge of a task force to find him." The secretary thumps me on the back. "Congratulations on your promotion."


	19. Chapter 19: Descent

Wow it's been a really long time. I have a very, very good excuse. Electrical engineering is hard and needs 110% of your attention. This is my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

I got a few comments asking why everyone seems to hate Kirito. There's a good reason, I assure you. It's a bit long, so you can skip to the line below if you want.

But first, a story for the reader.

I presume you're reading this on something that uses electricity to power it. You have a device under your control, something that can communicate my story from where I am to wherever you are. The internet is a global communications network that allows us all to communicate.

At the end of this author's note, you will wake up into the real world.

You wake up in a pool of viscous green liquid. Elves pull you out of the flowers, and tell you that you've been asleep your whole life.

The world you wake up has magic. You can't use it, but everyone who didn't wake up in a flower can. They use it extensively, to get around, to communicate, and to cook. You're physically stronger than they are, but they don't _need _heavy lifters_._ Electricity is quite possibly non-existent.

In other words, you're roughly useless until you learn magic. _If _you can learn magic.

Now, after being told that you're useless, one of the elves gleefully points out that this one celebrity that had recently been going stark raving mad about elves had forcibly moved the entire human population into the real world.

A world that's strange, alien, _very_ easy to die in, and the natives consider you little more than additional mouths to feed.

Disregarding the human population that automatically would go "Hey! Elves are cool!", I would estimate very few people would be happy to lose their homes, their jobs, all their life's work, and demoted to secondary-citizen status.

This is how I modeled the Aincrad survivor's reactions. Of course, Kirito also had Heathcliff slandering him, which galvanized a populous against him.

Also, before anyone says "Hey, what about the in-universe characters who think elves are cool?" there's this mob mentality thing that kinda got the better of anyone in my universe... for now.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

Robot suck. They really, really do.

I managed to sneak into the lockup, only to be confronted by five security robots. These things look like small tanks with human guns clutched in some sort of firing mechanism. I did have some information on them, but none of it is encouraging.

Robots don't sleep. Robots don't get distracted. Most of all, they don't hesitate to blow up people who are intruding upon their patrol area. The only mercy is that there's four normal ones.

It's too bad the last one is intelligent, a stripped down form of Yui's AI if the entry was any indication. I can tell by two indicators. The glow coming from the camera mounted under the machine gun is red, the one external visual difference.

They robots were designed to be indistinguishable on quick glance to discourage anyone deciding to take their chances against them.

The second reason I can tell which one is special?

_It's looking for me._

I kid you not. I snuck in here without tripping any sensors, I stayed out of sensor range of all the units, yet still this one unit seems to know where I am planning on going and is following me. I tried halting in position and waiting for the mobile turret move past me, but it had stayed in position.

This makes no sense, since it should be coming after me if it knows where I am, and if it doesn't know where I am, why is it following my path so precisely?

Then came the slightly disturbing revelation that if it is intelligent like Yui, it might just be enjoying the hunt. Imagine. Robots enjoying killing humans for sport.

The robot passes beneath me spinning around every thirty feet to look for me. I was using the ceiling panels again, since the robots hadn't decided to look up yet. I'm not sure if they can. If they can't, they need to design new robots.

Preferably once I had retrieved my stuff and gone far, far away.

My headset with Yui's communication link or whatever is about a forty feet away, three rows down. This building looks like a warehouse of some sort. Concrete floor, which are perfect for the robot's little omni-whatsists they use to navigate.

The robot with the red light passes directly underneath me once again. I swing my legs out and drop down. Immediately in front of me, the shelf has a gap through which I can crawl to avoid going around these shelves. I squeeze through, and look back just in time to see the robot cruise past.

That was close, but the bot now has to go all the way around to get to me, and I can already see another gap through which to crawl.

I squeeze through the gap, just as the motor noises start to come around the edge of the shelf. I risk a glance back, only to see that the robot is looking straight at me.

I don't wait around to see what happens. There's only one shelf left between Yui's interface and I, so I push at a crate and slowly start to shift it out of the way. The robot whirs away down the aisle. I can hear it turn the corner and head back. I give the crate a heave and it falls out to the other side of the shelf with a bang.

I squeeze through the gap and quickly start searching the shelves. This section of the shelving is devoted to headwear, so there's a lot of devices to sort through. It doesn't help that the one I had was the cheapest, and thus the most plentiful. It looks a lot like a rounded silver rectangle with three blue lines running across it horizontally. There's about two hundred of them. I'm not exactly sure, but I think I should probably get only the one with Yui in it, and I can't carry all of these with me.

The whirring of robots arriving at my position diverts my attention. The four simple robots surround me, two on either side of the aisle, with one behind each of the shelves. The advanced robot rolls up to five feet away and stops.

I stare at the machine. It doesn't have eyes, but I suspect it would be staring back at me if it did.

Okay, so maybe I could climb up one of the shelves and run? I mean, I'd have to be dodging bullets to escape. These things do have incredible aim though...

The red bot starts to chuckle.

All plans of escape flee my mind in favor of incredulity. "Huh? What's going on?"

A small glowing blue figure, about six inches high, appears about a foot over the robots top.

"Didja miss me?" Asks Yui.

* * *

(Logged Conversation #92,524)

"So what are you going to do about it?"

Silica had just finished regaling the man that had taken her under his wing with her new problem. "I guess I'll have to tell Director Katander."

"That's not going to end well for you if you don't get him and execute him properly." The man on the other end takes a deep breath. "Well, it's not like this hasn't happened before. They always get caught before long. Heck, I'm monitoring the spawn area, so I'll know when he decides to come back."

"That's good. I can't believe I messed it up! My first real job, too." Silica starts to chew her bottom lip.

"Ha! Try not to do it again, or you'll end up like my partner. Running around doing guard duty all the time as punishment." The voice sighs. "Speaking of which, he has decided to go searching for ghosts haunting the base, ever since his locker was acting funny-"

A sharp intake of breath.

"Uh, did the guy you killed have his cloak suit?"

Silica nods, remembers he can't see her and responds. "Yeah."

"_SHIT._ PEYTON! WE HAVE A SITUATION!"

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

"So, you hijacked the security robots."

Yui's tiny avatar nods.

"And then you had what's-his-name track me and relay it to you, which is why you we're tracking me without me being inside your sensor range."

"Yep!"

Which means I just spent thirty minutes sneaking through a massive warehouse for nothing."

"Well, now you should at least know where things are. You should grab everything you can on the way out."

I grunt. "My carrying capacity is pretty small."

Yui goes still and silent for a few seconds. Before her glowing figure moves, a message appears in my inbox. It's a list of the gear I should get, given what's in the warehouse and my carrying capacity.

"That's a neat trick." I say offhandedly. The first item on the list is a lightweight bullet resistant vest, but to get there I have to go three shelves down, and between me and that shelf there's the grenades. I should probably grab my goggles while I'm here as well.

"I can also figure out the best weapons, quantity of players, and basic strategy for raid bosses." Yui's hijacked robot follows me as I head down the aisle.

"That could have been useful."

"Only if you ever operated in a group of twelve or more players."

I grab a set of goggles that look almost exactly like my old set, but when I pick them up they show that this set has about ten extra features. "Hey Yui, don't I have to use the old goggles so I can bring you along?"

The projection shakes her head. "I'm currently inside the robot, and can transfer to any device with sufficiently advanced code. I have to sneak in, and I need to disguise my presence from automated bug scans."

"Someday, I might know what that kind of thing means." I say, rounding the shelf at the end of one of the aisles. Yui says to grab two flash bangs and one frag grenade from this aisle.

"If you go back to the real world, then it is pretty likely you will learn quickly, given your personality."

I sigh. "Yeah. Of course these people don't want to leave, and they even know how and that they'll be able to leave."

Yui is again silent aside from the whirring of the motors keeping the robot level with me. "There isn't too much out there."

I turn to the tiny girl. "Huh?"

"This server and Aincrad are both simulations. They were designed to keep most of this starship's crew entertained for as long as possible. Back on Earth, this is similar to a recreational activity that most people were enjoying on a regular basis. The real world is boring in comparison."

I stop in my tracks. "Boring?"

Yui nods. "It's more realistic... everything is sharper, more detailed. I don't blame you for not noticing while you were bedridden. Aside from that, there's actual human contact, which I'm told is very important psychologically. On the other hand, there are no wound quick fixes out there. In Aincrad, scraping your knee on a rock might take away a few hit points, easily replaced by eating a slice of bread. In Gunstorm, low damage is completely ignored. Out there, slicing your finger on a sheet of paper can hurt for days, despite being one of the most superficial injuries."

I come to the end of the next aisle and start looking for the correct set of body armor. "And there's no magic."

"No magic, no monsters trying to kill you, only other humans."

"What about guns?" I point in the general direction of the rifles I had passed earlier.

"Those exist, but not on our ship. If a projectile were to pierce the outer hull of our ship, oxygen would leak and threaten the lives of the crew. In fact, this setting is similar to the conditions of one of the larger nations back on earth when this ship took off."

I deflate a bit. "So, I just screwed over everyone from the Aincrad server."

Yui hesitates. "In a manner of speaking."

I shake my head. "I need to rethink this."

The rest of my shelf wandering was done in silence. I am now the owner of the aforementioned items as well as a flashlight, spare batteries, a tent, some rations, a pistol with a large tube on the end, and a really long gun that took up half of my inventory. I got some ammo for each of those, along with the bullet magazines to hold them.

"I can't be forcibly disconnected from this simulation, can I?"

Yui immediately responds. "No. If we don't send the ejection command, your mind will be violently switched between two realities, which has cause mental trauma in ninety percent of incidents."

"How can I send the ejection command?"

"It normally only triggers when the simulation ends, just like Aincrad. Both servers run on the Cardinal system, so there are many similarities."

"It _normally_ triggers once the simulation ends?"

Yui hesitates. "I do not have access to the command, nor does Seijirō on the outside. The conditions for execution are very strict as well."

"So I can either stay here, or take everyone with me. Again." I slump against a wall and rub my face.

"Here's not so bad." Yui says kindly. "Here, you have more than one life, and you can do lots of things."

"Everyone here hates me." I point out.

"Everyone out there hates you." Yui counterpoints. "Here you can do something about it at least."

"I wish I could just change it so I could walk in and out of the simulation as I please."

"You want to learn to code?"

"Is that the thing you do?"

"Yes. Though, I cannot achieve your objective as I do not have access to the systems required to let you leave the simulation. In fact, I do not have access to any functions of this server."

"How would you get access? You know, to leave the server?"

"Nobody can. Each server was coded with only two types of exit command: Single and mass. The 'mass' exit is the endgame. The single use is for admins only. Since you are not an admin, and since there is only a one in three million chance of you becoming and admin within the next ten years, there is little we can do."

"So, why can't you force the server to do what you want? Didn't you end up taking down Heathcliff's invulnerability back in Aincrad?"

"That was because of an error in the servers coding that allowed me to slip some of my own code in along with several other factors. I didn't so much erase his invulnerability as tell the cardinal server to check for invulnerability on entities that shouldn't have that flag. The server took it down; I just 'called in a raid' as they say here."

"So you can't get me out."

"No, but there's a small chance you can."

I raise my eyebrow as I snatch a small handheld coil of wire with "grappling hook" written on it. Version 3.

"There is a slim chance that I could help you learn to code to get you out of here."

"Let's do that."

"However, it will take some time, and after months of work you may find that nothing you can do will work. Since this cardinal server is very similar to the cardinal server running Aincrad, many of the exploits I found may still be in place."

_Clank_

I turn at the sound. It sounds like someone hit a metal shelf with a wrench.

The red robot containing Yui spins around.

"Run." She says in her exceedingly calm voice.

The blue robots scatter down the shelves and Yui heads off. I grab the top of the shelf and pull myself up.

I put the goggles on and watch as a display pops up. It gives me my health, ammo, and a few other things that I took for granted on Aincrad. Most importantly, it shows a message from x- er, Shinichirou?

No, that's not right.

I open the message to find a blue rectangle with the letters "NVGTR2.3 executable" under it.

I tap it and watch as my brand new HUD goes dark for a few seconds, then comes up with a map in the top right corner of my vision. A red path is traced through the warehouse, giving me a rough approximation of where to go to get out.

I say rough because even I can tell jumping down in front of those guards who just turned down the aisle is a bad idea.

I look up to see an I-beam a few feet to my left, heading roughly the way I'm heading. I slowly creep that way, eyes wide and heart pumping quickly. I won't be able to aim while this excited. Once I reach the location of the I-beam, I look down. None of the guards are looking. I bend my legs and take a deep breath.

The shelf deflects slightly as launch myself upwards. I extend my hands upwards and grab at the edge of the beam. For a horrible fraction of a second, I think I missed it. Then my hands grasp the lip on both sides and I'm hanging in the air.

I pull my legs up and hook them around the beam. Now I'm a lot less likely to slip. Slowly, ever so slowly I start to pull myself along the beam.

Below me one of the men starts to curse at the robots, which seem to be getting in the way of their movements. The robot below me in particular seems to be very good at blocking its target.

As I slide out of sight, the guard evidently gets completely fed up. He presses a hand to his ear and snarls into his radio. "Sarge, what the hell is going on with the security robots?"

I can't hear the reply, since I'm not using that method of communication right now. If Yui was with me then I might have been able to intercept the signals. I could hear the guard's reaction to the reply well enough though.

_Bang_

The entire warehouse sounds silent after that gunshot, with the exception of the sparking electricity coming from the now-broken robot.

Then all hell breaks loose. Guns start to fire, too many to count how many are going off. I move as fast as I can without letting go of the I-beam, confident that the deafening bursts of gunfire echoing in the warehouse will cover any noise I could possibly be making.

The gunfire slowly dies out and the guards start yelling.

"Anyone hurt?"

"One leg wound, nothing serious."

"Nothing."

"All good."

"Damn robots. I thought they're supposed to be unhackable or some shit like that."

"No, only the one with the red lights. The really expensive one."

The sounds of metal sliding on the concrete floor.

"I think that's this one."

"Huh."

"Someone tell IT to fix their shit."

A blue haze covers everything for a second before Yui's cheerful face appears in front of me. I risk letting go of the beam with one hand to lift the goggles off my face. Yeah, no upside-down, floating girl.

"Hey." I whisper.

She nods and looks at the line leading me out of the warehouse. Without talking, she indicates that I should follow the line.

I lick my lips and continue on at the slow, silent pace I started with.

Below me, the guards continue to talk. I can't crane my neck to identify specific faces for the voices, but I can tell there are at least six people down there.

"Who are we going after anyway? Did one of the section eight guys go rogue?"

"Nah, I hear it's a guy like that girl we picked up, what's-er-name..."

"Silica?"

"Yeah. He comes from where she comes from. They used swords and stuff there."

"Like in fairy tales?"

"Yeah."

One of them snorts. "That's hilarious."

"But that does raise a question of why the robots went crazy. I doubt someone who just got here could reprogram something section eight designed. I mean, remember when Silica got here? She tried to fly a helicopter by encouraging it to go up."

"Yeah, that is strange."

A deeper voice joins the others. "We should continue to look around, and use the anti-invisibility lights. According to dispatch he has one of our stealth suits."

The other all reply with a form of "Yes sir" and spread out again.

I glance along my path. Only twenty feet from the door, with only one shelf between me and the exit. I'm almost home free. As I slide over the shelf, I unwrap my legs and lower myself from the beam. At full extension, I still have about a foot and a half between me and the top of the shelf. Once I land, I'm going to have to move fast because of all the things I might be, quiet was never my strong suit.

I take a deep breath. Yui gives me a wink and a thumbs up.

I let go.

_Thud_

Immediately, three flashlight beams sweep around to where I landed, one of them giving off that weird purple light that reveals anything hidden by a cloaking device. I drop to my stomach and start to inch my way along.

The footsteps around me grow louder as the guards approach my position.

"Did you hear that?"

"Sounded like someone kicked a shelf."

"He's probably around here then."

A pause. The edge of a flashlight beam passes over me, but continues past. "You think there might be more than one?"

"Why would you say that?"

"Well, are you _sure _nobody in section eight decided to hack our own systems? It seems a bit too convenient for the robots to go haywire at just the right time for this guy."

My name is Kirito. Not "this guy." It's starting to get on my nerves.

"Any sign of him?"

"No. That's so weird. Maybe he's in the rafters?"

Flashlights point upwards and start to scan the intricate lattices that hold the roof up. I dare to peek over the side and find that the door is entirely open, nobody looking at it. The two guards in that aisle are looking up and pointed away from the exit.

Seizing my chance, I swing my legs over and climb down the shelves like a ladder. I take three steps and I'm at the door. None of the guards have noticed me yet, so I'm good.

I slip around the door frame and activate the cloak. The hallway is lit brightly in contrast to the warehouse, so anyone entering it from either end would be able to see me with a glance if I was visible. The navigation program is telling me to go to the left, so I follow its path.

It leads me down a few unmarked corridors and then to a series of vents. Yui pops up as I take a short break to let the cloak recharge inside a vent.

"Do you know where you're going?" She inquires. "Because I checked the location data from the navigation program and found that it leads to the slums."

"Slums?"

"It's an area where the NPCs live, along with "cowardly" players. Guns are frowned on there, but as an effect of that the standard of living is low. Think of it like floor three of Aincrad, where no weapons are allowed. Very little trading was done with that floor, and it was for the most part left alone to their own business."

"Oh." I look at my inventory. There's a few weapons in there. "Will I be alright?"

"If you don't draw attention to yourself. If they see expensive gear like what you have on you, they may refuse to talk to you."

I bite my lip. "More secrets, huh."

"Yes. However, this is probably the best way to get to the underside of this world."

I look over at the apparition. "That's where all the fighting is, right?"

"It's where all the mutants are. There's plenty of fighting going on above the surface where we are now, just only between players."

I take a deep breath. "Alright. Looks like I need to go down to level up. Let's keep moving."

I turn on the cloak and move out.

* * *

(Asuna's Perspective)

As Kuradeel and I, Asuna, walk further and further down into the bowels of the earth, I hardly raise a complaint. We had found a lot of good gear, killed quite a few monstrosities that were vaguely familiar from Aincrad, and all in all have done what we used to do, just much more efficiently. These guns are very effective fighting tools.

Still, having only Kuradeel to talk to does eventually take its toll.

"Kuradeel, we've been down here almost a week now. We need to turn around and head back up to the surface soon." I open my inventory. "I'm down to almost half rations."

He gives a short laugh. "That's because you refuse to save them for emergencies."

I shudder. "Right, like I want to eat the mutant rats that you keep finding."

He rolls his eyes. "You've eaten worse."

"And I'd rather not eat stuff like that again. So let's turn around."

He pulls up his inventory and pokes at a few things. "Hmm… I guess we should." He frowns. "We can continue for the rest of the day though, right?"

I glance at my timer. It's around six in the evening, so it would be getting dark, if we weren't so far down on the barest flickers of light filtered down at high noon. Unlike Aincrad which has discrete floors, Gunstorm has one massive system of caves leading downwards. The upper layers are less layers and more bits of scrap metal suspended by wires. As you go farther down, the open ground starts to turn into tunnels and corridors. It took me a while to discover that the entirety of this world is made up of junk stacked on top of more junk. The upper levels look almost like Aincrad from the air, but that's an illusion. Try to walk on the surface for any length of time and you will eventually come to a gap that is difficult to cross without special training or a helicopter. The lower levels tend to be mostly intact ships and aircraft and things. Sometimes, they still have power and you can use the computers attached to them.

And the whole thing is infested with mutants.

Things that _used _to be small. Things that _used_ to be relatively harmless. Things that now can tear you apart with a glance, sometimes literally.

That's what we kill with our guns to get experience and money in this world. Essentially the same as the monsters in Aincrad, and some of them even look similar to those I've fought before.

Down where we are, there's a lot of unexplored area. There's unopened planes-turned-metal-coffins filled with skeletons and supplies. Cargo ship interiors provide vast caverns for the wildlife to hang out in, and contain all sorts of things. Kuradeel and I once came across a sealed spaceship that, once opened, spewed out noxious gasses that killed everything in the immediate area that wasn't wearing a gas mask.

Thankfully, I packed gas masks.

As I said, barely any light filters down to where we are now. If you're lucky, you can look up at around noon and there will be a spot that a small ray of light reaches between the gaps of all this debris. Down here, the mutants and never all asleep at once, like on the surface or near it where the light forces a day and night cycle. Down here it's always night.

There's also very little communications. There's too much junk in the way to talk to someone on the surface, so I can't talk to the other in my party even if I wanted to.

"Yeah, sure. We'll continue for another few hours."

Kuradeel smiles. "I hope we find something good."

We already found a lot of good things. I glance at my still-open inventory at the items with price tags about ten times bigger than anything I'm currently using. "What are you expecting to find?"

Kuradeel shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe a new type of explosives? I really like finding new explosives."

I slide my machine pistols into their holsters and sit down on top of a desk mounted to the wall of whatever hunk of metal we're currently in. "What's wrong with the stuff you have now? In the end, it all just ends up as so much burnt ground, right?"

Kuradeel spins on his heel dramatically. "What? How can you say that? Explosives are almost an art form! You have C4 which can be manhandled extensively and still go off! You have grenades which are great for scattering enemies! Cordite for blowing doorways into solid sheets of metal! Not to mention the holy grail of explosives! Are you curious?"

I pull a ration bar from my inventory and unwrap it, the shiny wrapping becoming so much glittering light as the server deletes it. If I try to ignore him now, He's going to keep pestering me until I listen to him, isn't he? "Fine. What's this holy grail?"

Kuradeel adopts a pose and takes a breath. "I'm looking for a football."

"…I thought we were talking about the holy grail?"

He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, it's called a football. It's a medium sized silver case with a pair of handcuffs looped through the handle. It can create a massive explosion that might destabilize everything on this server if it went off."

I stare at him for half a second. Then I lose my composure and start to laugh.

"Hey! What're you laughing about?"

"There's no way something like that exists, and look at your face! You have such a serious expression!"

Kuradeel sighs and turns around. "It's true. I heard that someone set one of these off once, and ended up destroying an entire city, and that the aftereffects caused the area to continue to kill people for the next thirty years."

"Mmhmm. I'm sure."

He huffs. "I'm just telling you what I read in that bomb making book. They're impossible for us to make anymore, so if there is one it would be really cool to find it."

"And what would you do if you found it?" I smirk. "Set it off?"

"Possibly."

Upon noticing my lees-than-impressed expression, he continues. "Kidding. I mean, from the size of the damage numbers, the football would kill every single thing on this server. Since I'm here, that would be _slightly _counterproductive to living."

"Ah." A pop the last bit of the ration bar in my mouth, chew quickly and swallow. "So, why do you think you can find that down here?"

"We're in unexplored territory now. None of the factions on the surface would let something like that just go floating around if someone had already found one. Down here where we are there seems to be a lot junked military airplanes. There's one in particular called "Air Force One" that was used to carry the football. Or something."

I dust myself off and gesture ahead. "Lead on then." I draw the machine pistols I keep strapped to my hips and let my arms dangle at my sides, ready for anything that could come at us.

We climb through the debris for another hour and a half before we find something. A long half an hour in which Kuradeel regales me the intricacy of various types of things that explode. A blue and white tube with some foreign script on the side is sitting on top of one of the largest ships I've ever seen. This area is cavernous, much like a boss room in Aincrad, due to a complex tangle of things above us. Seeing such a large space after being stuck in slim passages and narrow cracks for the better part of a week up until now, it gives a feeling of reverse claustrophobia.

"This… This is it!" Kuradeel exclaims. He rushes up to the airplane and opens up his status window to check something. He looks between the window only he can see and the text written on the side of the aircraft. "I knew we could find it!"

"Wow. And we were just talking about it earlier. What a coincidence."

Kuradeel rubs the back of his head. "Yeah. What a coincidence. Hey, want to check it out?"

"It's what we came for."

Not that I would say it out loud, but I'm really hoping that there isn't a football inside this airplane. That would be scary thing to have to keep track of all the time. Not to mention all the surface factions would want it, especially the branch we belong to, the Army. Who knows what those people would do with a football?

I walk up to the side of the airplane. Fortunately for us, its wheel structures had collapsed over the years and we can easily climb on top of the wing. Unfortunately, unlike most planes, there's no door leading from the wing to the inside.

Kuradeel climbs up on the wing. "Ah, yeah. This plane will be harder to get into than most. It was designed to transport really sensitive stuff, right?"

I shrug. "Makes sense. Can you use some of your… C4 to get this open?"

"No, C4 is for- I'm using the cordite, not C4."

I throw my hands in the air, walk to the edge of the wing and sit down on the edge. I should be safe from the blast over here. I pull out another ration bar and stuff it in my face.

A sharp crack echoes through the cavernous room as the cordite goes off. I glance over to see Kuradeel poking his head into the new hole in the side of the plane.

And then a low gargle-y howl that somehow evokes a slimy feeling resounds through the cavern.

I had encountered the creature that makes that sound, and it's not one I wanted to fight without at least ten other people firing guns in the same direction. Maybe a grenade launcher or two. The noise for the cordite must have alerted it to our presence.

Interestingly, the creatures down here are really stupid, but really strong. Their senses are almost universally dull, so It's usually a lot easier to sneak around them rather than firing weapons at them and alerting everything within a mile of you to your presence. One vaguely humanoid thing is completely blind and deaf, but can feel vibrations through the floor. It has two wicked sharp blades coming out of its arms that do a lot of damage. The best way to deal with it is to press yourself against a wall and wait for it to stalk past you.

Of course, the thing that had just announced its presence isn't something we can trick that easily. Still, getting inside the plane before it gets here sounds like a much better idea than staying outside for any longer than I need to.

Normally, rushing right into an unknown, just unsealed aircraft is a horrible idea, but the alternative is to be a light snack for a Leviathan.

Once inside, Kuradeel quickly pushes a… Where did he get a wooden bookshelf from? I glance around me as He seals the exit. Unlike most planes of this size, there aren't rows and rows of seat designed to accommodate lots of passengers. Instead, there is what looks like a library. Books litter the floor, fallen from the shelves during what must have been a rough crash. Glass shards sit among the books from the overhead light fixtures that had been destroyed in the self-same crash.

"Whoa. It's nice in here." Kuradeel points a handheld light around in awe.

"Yeah, the chaos lends a real charm to the place."

I get the impression that he's glaring at me, though I can't see him with his flashlight blinding me. "Once it's cleaned up, this place could look really good. I heard this is supposed to be really fancy." He points to an entryway, one that used to be the only way in and out of the room. "Let's explore while we wait for nasty out there to get bored, alright?"

I sigh and follow him.

Aside from the evidence of a crash, mostly in the form of broken glass and loose items, the plane does indeed seem like it had a really nice interior. There's even multiple floors. While searching blindly, we find a variety of rooms, from a kitchen worthy of a building on the surface to a fully stocked armory locked behind two very heavily locked gates. Though by far the most bizarre…

"Why are there five people on this bed?"

Kuradeel's question fades quickly in the thickly carpeted room. Indeed, five skeletons lie on the large bed taking up almost the entirety of the room.

"Seeing as they're all armed, it probably isn't what you were thinking." I respond back. "Maybe they all holed up in here for some reason?"

Kuradeel gives a non-committal hum as he examines an elaborate painting on the wall. It has a bird holding things in its claws and a shield painted a garish red white and blue surrounded by the same text that was on the outside of the airplane.

I push the skeletons off the bed and wait patiently while Kuradeel examines every inch of the design. I had gotten quite used to his interest in the weird symbols that are painted everywhere on everything we encounter. Seriously, what's wrong with leaving a wall blank?

As I sit down, I bounce a skull off the bed into the narrow area between the bed and the wall. Instead of the dull thud of bone on carpet, it makes a metallic noise. I peer over to find a big silver box.

"Hey, is this what you were looking for?" I ask before my mind can tell my tongue not to.

Kuradeel hops onto the bed and peers into the crack. His eyes then go wide and his rate of breath increases. "It might be! It might be! Here, let me get it-"

After much struggling with the surprisingly heavy box, we eventually get it onto the bed. There doesn't seem to be a way to open it, but there is a shiny pair of handcuffs attached to a handle. Along one of the big faces of the box is a control panel of some sort.

"This is it! Asuna, this is it!"

"That's… good."

"With this, I can get anything!"

It takes a second for that sentence to register. "Huh?"

He looks at me with barely controlled excitement in his eyes. His hands even start to shake. "Don't you see? With this, we own this simulation! We control everyone's lives! We don't have to worry about fighting other people ever again!"

I give him an odd look, sliding off the bed as I do so. "Uh… Actually, I think we should destroy it. I think that the factions above would come after us to get it."

Kuradeel frowns. "But that would be such a waste! We could get anything we want, live a life of luxury! With this, nobody would dare deny us anything!"

My skin starts to crawl. "Kuradeel, I thought you said that that thing would kill everyone in Gunstorm."

"It would! With the threat of that over them, no one will bother us!"

My hand instinctively reaches for the machine pistol at my hip. Something in Kuradeel's eyes has changed. "Okay… Why do you keep saying us?"

"With this, we can be elites! I can make you into a god! You'll be a perfect being, high above everyone else. And I'll be at your side! We'll be able to have butlers and maids to do all of our work, and we'll be in charge of the five militaries, and- What are you doing?"

I had plastered myself against the wall and had started to creep along it towards the exit, but stopped once Kuradeel's voice turned to ice.

"Asuna, don't you want to live the easy life? Not worrying about anything?" He stands up off the bed and takes a step closer to me. For the first time, I recognize an insane glint in his eyes.

"Kuradeel, you really need to calm do-"

"CALM DOWN? WHY DO I NEED TO CALM DOWN? I JUST HANDED YOU THE WORLD ON A SILVER PLATTER AND YOU REJECTED IT!" He slams his hand on the football. "Why, Asuna? I've given you everything. I gave you a chance at power, a chance at fame and fortune unheard of in Aincrad or Gunstorm. Why do you continue to reject me?"

He takes another step closer. He's within arm's reach now. We stare at each other for a few seconds, his eyes somehow both perfectly sharp and completely glazed over all at once.

My nerve breaks first. I bolt for the door and barely evade his grasp.

I run as fast as I can from Kuradeel, and his vaguely-Leviathan howl echoes through the empty hallways.

I knew he had a crush on me back in Aincrad. He wasn't very subtle about it either. As we ventured around together, he got better. I thought that meant he had moved on, or at least become less obsessed.

I guess I was wrong.

I had already gotten very good at mapping out building and vehicle layouts in the past few months since I met Kirito. Thus, it was just a matter of scrambling for the library, no chance of me losing my way.

Heavy footsteps behind me.

"Asuna! Why? Why, Asuna? You and I could've ruled the world!"

I neglect to answer, vainly hoping he might take a wrong turn in this maze-like plane giving me time to escape.

No such luck.

I find my way back to the library-

Oh, no.

The bookcase.

Unlike Kuradeel, I'm primarily a speed build. I can't shift the bookcase in time.

I spin around, drawing one of my pistols from its holster.

I don't have a chance to complete the motion. Before I can raise the weapon, Pain shoots through my body and my muscles contract. Two thin wires trail from where they impaled themselves in my flesh back to the small, boxy gun Kuradeel holds in his hand.

My finger clamps down on the trigger of my weapon and a line of bullets arcs upwards, unguided by my will. For a brief fraction of a second, it seems the sweep of the gun's spray will hit Kuradeel. Instead, a bullet takes off a clump of hair and the gun clicks on an empty chamber instead of firing a round after that.

Kuradeel didn't even flinch as the bullet passes his head. The taser is still pumping me full of energy as a grin spreads across his face.

The last words I hear as I lose consciousness are "See Asuna? I knew you'd see it my way."


	20. Chapter 20: The Depths One Sinks To

Another chapter in a reasonable time frame? Preposterous!

It's true! To be honest, I think this was the easiest chapter to write yet, now that I have a clear idea what I'm doing.

Anyway, Enjoy!

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

I, Klein, stand in front of a group of people all looking at me unimpressed. Well, one of them isn't so much unimpressed as ready to kill me at a moment's notice.

I currently have six people in front of me.

Henrietta, from the navy along with me. She's a member of SEAL teams and one of the Navy's top operatives. No, I don't know how I got assigned someone who is so much _better_ at, you know, military stuff. She cradles a sniper rifle in her hands, checking its sleek black exterior for wear.

The two Silica dragged along seemed slightly too normal to be military, but they are special ops or whatever. The smaller one is introduced as Peyton. He's slightly gangly and his eyes are never still, always watching the corners. The larger older man had apparently taken Silica under his wing. He introduced himself as Hisashi. This man is almost as still as a rock when standing still, wasting no movements. He keeps a pair of sunglasses over his eyes. They both appear weaponless but I'm not stupid enough to believe that they're unarmed.

Last newcomer is a member of the Coast Guard, a guy about my age named Christopher. He has a cigarette clamped between his teeth, but he doesn't seem to plan on lighting it. He's yet to take the thing out of his mouth in the hour or so I've known him. He has a small submachine gun with a strap slung across his back. Unlike most of us, he lacks spare clips of ammo around his waist but instead has wrenches and some kind of meter. His eyes are closed like he's sleeping.

Silica has her little drone perched on her shoulder, a boxy thing that projects the image of a dragon around it in much the same form as Pina of Aincrad. She has a decent sized revolver strapped to her hip, and another sidearm tucked into the side pocket of her tactical vest.

Lastly, someone I didn't intend to invite yet showed up all the same. Lizbeth, pink hair waving slightly in the breeze, a small smile on her face. Also, she's pointing a grenade launcher at me. She has a slick looking shotgun hanging off her shoulder too, but that one is safely pointing somewhere else.

Oh, and she arrived by helicopter.

"So!" I inject as much cheer into my voice as possible. "Now that we're all here-"

Lizbeth looks at Silica. "I thought you were joking when you said Klein was in charge of the task force."

Silica shakes her head. "I know! His boss and my boss apparently decided on him for knowing Kirito the longest."

"But he's not qualified to lead this outfit." Lizbeth complains, shooting me a sidelong glance and a smirk.

"Actually," Henrietta doesn't look up from her rifle but continues on. "He was apparently the leader of a squad back in your old home. Of all of us gathered here, I assume he has the most experience leading a group of people around. Unless, of course, our good friend from the Coast Guard has had leadership experience?"

"Nah." Christopher yawns. "I'm just a mechanic."

"Which explains the tools." Silica says.

Peyton's eyes dart to the meter at Chris's belt. "Can that device detect ghosts?"

I look helplessly back and forth as the conversation continues to spiral out of my control. I may have been the leader of a guild in the past, sure, but that was a much more casual group than this task force. Back then, we would once in a while venture outside the walls of floor twelve and see what we could kill before returning back.

This group is already shaping up to be problematic. Though no outright hostility has been expressed towards anyone but me, we _do_ have members from four of the five major factions currently ruling this world. Henrietta and I represent the Navy while Silica and her two friends belong to Special Ops; Lizbeth belongs to the Air Force and Chris to the Coast Guard. I can feel that while everyone is bantering like old friends on the surface, they're all trying to analyze the situation. After all, we've effectively been in a stalemate, wondering who the first to break the temporary peace would be.

Of course, when I asked for an Air Force pilot to give us a ride to our destination, I wasn't thinking it would be Lizbeth.

I clap my hands together and succeed on drawing everyone's attention. Henrietta stops polishing her rifle and glances up.

"Okay. Now, I'm sure you all know but we're here to go and kill Kirito. Since the Spec Ops people were unable to catch him within their own facility, it is suspected he went underground. We're going to fly over to-"

Lizbeth snorts. "You think _you're_ getting in _my_ helicopter?"

I cast a weary gaze her way. "Yes, since your job in this operation is to fly us all to this spot here-" I point to a spot on the map, but she doesn't even look at it before interrupting me again.

"I don't recall being ordered to be a bus service."

I glance to the others for help, but everyone else seems disinterested or actively avoiding my eyes. Okay, if I'm doing that poorly, someone help me! "Then what _are_ your orders?" I ask with a sigh.

"Confidential."

"Right." I take a deep breath. "The plan _originally _had all of us taking a helicopter to this point and descending into the lower areas from there." I point to a spot on my map which places a marker on everyone else map. It's right to the south of the slums. "Silica says that the most likely way for him to have escaped their notice was going down into the tunnels. Since none of us are allowed to know where their base is, we're going to have to start at the slums and head out from there. He's probably headed either there or the city."

"Seems logical." Christopher takes a deep breath. "'course, he mighta just headed straight down into the depths and got himself killed."

"Not him. He's a planner…" I grimace. "Actually, you're right. There's a good chance that he did just go straight down there armed with nothing but a Glock 17. The problem is we would have to know where to start to find him then."

"I'm just sayin' he's probably dead."

I glance at the man with the lazy drawl. His entire body is relaxed, and if I was his superior officer I would write him up on charges of insubordination. What halts my reprimand is the cold, calculating look I had seen on the faces of the Navy's toughest.

Silica responds before I do. "Kirito's a menace. He took on monsters bigger than you're biggest boat back in Aincrad. He's not dead if nobody saw him die."

Henrietta pulls the magazine out of her sniper rifle and starts loading bullets into the top. Slowly. "You mean to tell me that" *click* "one man took out something over" *click* "420 feet long?" *click*

Silica looks confused for a second, then looks at me. "I, uh, think so. I never talked to him myself-"

Lizbeth nods at Henrietta. "One of the things we fought was a snake that took up the space equivalent of an aircraft carrier. My granddad fought it the first time, which is how I know."

The sniper puts the magazine back in her gun and ratchets the slide back and forth to load the first round. "Then let's hope he went to the slums."

* * *

In the end, Lizbeth relented and let me onto the helicopter for the ride to the slums. I didn't really get the impression she was planning on leaving me behind, but she sure seems to enjoy watching me squirm. I kind of want to shout at her that it was mistake to try to insist she joined me in the Navy, but I'd rather not make a scene.

We landed on a strip of metal only just big enough to support the helicopter. There was a big white "H" painted on it, but that could be a relic from when it was attached to something.

Lizbeth was true to her Air Force name, skillfully landing the large helicopter without any trouble. We bail out and descend into the slums via ropes.

Nobody spared us a second glance, so I guess that's normal here. I guess it was a helipad up there.

Once we're all on the ground, I divide us into groups. Hisashi and Silica were to head into the markets to look ask around, Lizbeth and Christopher went to the residential district, and I went with Henrietta and Peyton to the ragtag "police" that the slums had conjured up to enforce their own laws.

I thought that our job would be the easiest right up until the "sheriff" slammed his door in my face. I cradle my nose for a few seconds before turning to the two others. Peyton was grinning like a fool and Henrietta was as stone faced as always. "So. Looks like finding information is going to be a bit harder than I thought."

Peyton sobers up and nods. "I forgot you guys were new, to be honest. They really don't like those of us in the military much. I kinda forgot to you about that."

"Aren't you supposed to be information specialist? How could you forget something that important?" I rest my head in my hands. "Okay, we still need information. Any ideas?"

"We could canvass the area and look for him on foot." Peyton says.

"Throw a bomb into the crowd and threaten to detonate if the police won't cooperate." Henrietta says without much interest.

"How big is this area again?" The aboveground map I was given did show the larger holes in the outer surface of this simulation, but not the entirety of the city.

"If you're referring to the slums, it's about twenty square kilometers."

Peyton looks at Henrietta is disbelief. "That big? We'd need an army to find someone in here."

"And no, no bombs." I add, then sigh. "I'll try again." I turn back to the door and knock again.

"Was the door not clear enough? I'll translate. Go away." Comes a gruff voice.

"I'm sorry, but we just need to ask you a few questions. If you'll indulge us, we'll be on our way." I say as amicably as I can manage.

The door opens and a skinny man with a lit cigarette in his mouth plants himself in the doorway. His hair is curly, black and dangles in front of his eyes. His scowl ruins what would otherwise be a handsome face. "I don't know what it is about you dumb military assho-" He blinks a few times when he gets a good look at Henrietta. "Hey, why didn't you tell me you were coming? I woulda bought some champagne." His voice is laced with enough sarcasm to destroy the helicopter we came in on.

Henrietta narrows her eyes. Turning to me without responding to the sheriff, she says "I will wait outside. Please be quick." and hurries back the way we entered.

Peyton asks nobody in particular "What's her deal?"

The sheriff sighs. "Alright, I'll answer your questions. Otherwise, I'm gonna hafta deal with a bomb later."

He reluctantly steps back and waves us in. Payton and I step into the cluttered office and sit in the seats he gestures to. He sits behind his desk and props his feet up on top of some paperwork stacked on his desk. "So what do you two and psycho out there want?"

"We want to ask about a guy that came through here-" I begin, but Peyton interrupts me.

"How do you know Henrietta?"

The sheriff (his desk has a little plaque that named him "Sheriff A. Hunter") grunts. "I used to be in her SEAL team. She's not really a team player, to say the least. Most operations went south the moment she laid eyes on her enemy, since she's a great believer in shoot first and ask later. I lost three of my lives in her squad." He pulls a glass bottle out from under his desk and takes a swig from the bottle. "Dumb woman was always so focused on doing things her way she never followed her orders."

Peyton and I glance at each other.

"So you two better watch out. Once she spots the enemy, you're pretty much screwed. She'll be fine, don't worry."

I sigh. "Great. And we're on a capture mission."

He offers a smirk. "I don't envy whoever's in charge of your little group." He downs more of the brown liquid. "So, why's she here to terrorize my home?"

"We're looking for someone who escaped from the Spec Ops." Peyton says. "Did you hear about those guys that came in from outside? This guy's one of them." He claps his hand on my shoulder. "One of his friends decided to go rogue and started trying to take down the simulation."

Sheriff Hunter stopped with the bottle halfway to his lips. "Does this idiot have medium length black hair, a slim build, and more gear hanging off of him then a whole platoon?"

I sink lower in my seat. "Sure sounds like him." I mutter, though loud enough to be heard.

"Yeah, I talked with him yesterday. Was asking all sorts of crazy things, like about where he could find maps of the lower sections of The Pit and whether I knew of any good weapons caches." He snorts. "Right, as if anything I found wouldn't have already been taken by the military."

"Maps?" I ask.

"Yeah, like treasure maps. He must be looking for something deep in the recesses of The Pit."

I turn to Peyton. "I really should have asked this earlier, but where's the entrance to the spire?"

"It's not down there. It's on surface level."

"So that means there's something down there he wants before he proceeds up the tower." I muse. "Did he say what he was looking for?"

Sheriff Hunter shrugs in an exaggerated manner. "I didn't care enough to listen. If he didn't somehow get into my office without my permission I wouldn't have even talked to the guy. I mean, who the hell thinks maps are useful? Anything recorded on paper is gone by now." He tips his bottle up.

"Did you tell him where a map shop is?" I prod.

"Yeah. Told him to check the one right over on Broadway- er, let me find a map-" He fumbles around for a few seconds. He finds a pen and a piece of paper and quickly scrawls something on it. Before either of us can get a good look at it he holds it up in such a manner as to make it impossible to see from out seats. "Now, I'll give this to you on one condition. You get Henrietta out of the slums five minutes ago and once you've done your business here, I never see your faces again. Next time, you'll get a bullet to the brain pan."

I accept the terms with a shiver. That expression told me he meant business. We hurry out of the office and find Henrietta polishing her weapon. Standing a large distance back in a semicircle is several men with light sidearms that I would guess are the police around here. They all stare warily at the woman dressed in black. She looks back with barely contained disdain.

I clap a hand on her shoulder to try to break the tension and instantly regret it. She has her sidearm drawn and pressed into my face before I have a chance to react. My words end up slightly distorted by the barrel poking into my cheek. "'et's go. i's 'ime to go."

To my credit, my knees were only shaking a little.

She slowly lets the pistol fall away from my face. She rips the paper out of my hand and examines it for a few seconds before throwing it back at me, which doesn't work because it's paper. It lazily drifts down to the ground where I snatch it up and try to read the hastily scrawled map.

Peyton sidles up to me as he watches the retreating back of Henrietta. "Do you want to tell her that she's supposed to leave the slums, like, right now?"

"Do you?"

He shakes his head. "I'd rather announce my plans to kill my boss."

* * *

(Asuna's Perspective)

When I came to, I found myself back in the room with the large bed in the plane Kuradeel and I had found. The bed is a really nice bed, all things considered. Nice and fluffy, and the sheets aren't the ones stained with the rotten remains of the corpses that had died here. Speaking of corpses, there wasn't any skeletons around here either.

What isn't so nice is that my hands are bound together and my feet are bound together and then to the end post of the bed. A gag sits in my mouth, and drips of saliva fall out and turn to small polygons as they fall to the bed. I can't move very well, but I can see that the skeletons had all been completely removed from the room.

The door to the room opens up and Kuradeel enters with some food. Unlike the rations I've been living on since I've left Aincrad this looks like a full meal. His face brightens up as he sees me.

"Oh, you're awake! I made you breakfast." He lays the tray on the bed beside me. "A princess needs to eat like one, you know?"

He goes back to the door and slides a bar across it to bar it, then comes back and takes off the gag. As I open my mouth to protest, He puts my head on his lap and gets a spoon of food in his right hand. "Open wiiiiiide!" He says like he's talking to a child. He sticks the spoon into my mouth before I can get any words out.

Frankly, I'm surprised. It tastes really good. I don't know how long I was out, but I was famished. As embarrassing as it was, I let him continue to feed me. It's not like I could tell him not to, since he put something in my mouth every time I try to talk. Nobody would see me down here anyway.

Nobody knows where we are. This one thought freezes my thought processes as panic rises inexorably. Kuradeel and I had gone off on leave for two weeks, so the Army wouldn't even be looking for us until then. Klein and the rest might know what we were doing, but Kuradeel had changed where he wanted to search at the last minute, even if I had accidentally told someone else of our planned excursion. Normally I would say that I'm not reckless enough to spill secrets, but then I always assumed I was a good judge of character.

Well, my first impression of Kuradeel was correct; I just kind of assumed he got better in the past few months. As soon as he sets down the spoon, he places a finger on my lips as if to tell me to be quiet before he slides the gag back on and ties it tightly behind my head.

He sets the tray off to the side, but keeps my head in his lap. "Tomorrow, I will be able to offer you the world, my princess. I plan on showing the world what I have for them if they disobey my whims. Then, all my planning and exploring will have come to fruition." He chuckles down at me. "Oh, do you want to hear how I planned this all out? Well, let's start at the beginning.

"As you know I was assigned to a different squad then you were when we got into Gunstorm. My team descended down to a cavern near here to map out a new portion of the Pit. It was grueling going, since our commander had decided on a set pace. It took us a week to get this far down, unlike you and me who took only half a week." He starts to stroke my hair absentmindedly as he continues. "The worst part is decided that our job wasn't to loot the various wreck we came upon, but just to map out the area. Have you ever heard of a more absurd proposition? With the pace we were setting and the fact we were not looting even the easiest targets got to me in the end. At night, I snuck out to see what I could find down the many side paths that we had continuously ignored. What did I find? I found beautiful caverns, mountains of metal that seem carefully constructed to collapse after a single shockwave. I found vehicles with guns large enough to put the ones on the surface to shame. I found this."

He waves his hands to indicate the plane we're on. "I found this and I realized that it must be important. Instead of immediately cracking it open, I decided to do some research. I sat down on the deck of the aircraft carrier and typed in the name on the side of the plane. This used to belong to the most important man in the world, his private airplane that was equipped with all sorts of luxuries you can't find on the surface of this world. He also commanded great armies and terrible weapons. That led me to the football. It was then that I found my calling in explosives."

He takes out a brick with an angular loop and three-quarters of a circle inscribed on the surface. "This is C4. When I returned to camp the night I found this plane I grabbed one brick of this and put it in my pack. I figured no one else would miss it. And nobody did! That Leviathan out there found us that day too, and it was only my quick thinking with the C4 that saved us from becoming food. Well, saved me. The others were all eaten in their sleep before I was able to throw the C4 into its mouth and pull the detonator trigger."

He places an object designed to fit comfortably in the palm of a closed hand. "Ever since, this has been my detonator. I managed to get back up to the surface myself using the rest of the C4, and when I got back they praised me for surviving such a terrible ordeal. I was promoted and sent back down with a new squad to see if I could find anything useful down here. Of course, I didn't reveal this spot to them. I lead them around, and we found little of interest. I did manage to get permission to keep exploring down here from my boss, which gave me a chance to stock up food and other things we'll need in the aircraft carrier below us.

"Finally, after all my preparations were ready, all I had to do was bring you down here with me to see if the football was actually down here. If it wasn't, then all that time would have gone to waste, but as you and I both know it was here."

His head jerks to the left suddenly his hand starts moving to manipulate invisible menus. He gently slides my head off his lap and stands up. He turns back once he reaches the doorway and gives me a sweet smile. "I'll be back in a few hours. Stay there until I get back, okay?"

I swallow the saliva building up from the gag and close my eyes, resisting the urge to shiver

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

"But we need to-" I start to plead.

"I don't care if it'll save the entirety of Gunstorm. I'm not going to let you into my shop with all those weapons. You filthy military dogs think you own the server just because you have lots of guns. Us folk want nothing to do with it, you hear?"

"It's really import-"

The door slams in my face.

"-ant."

I turn back to my waiting group. Most of them look weary, with the exception of Peyton and Henrietta. The weariness stems from those two and the shop owner's less than pleasant demeanor. I look at the clock on my HUD. It's been only an hour since we left the sheriff's office, and yet Peyton has managed to drive Christopher into building a gag from spare parts and Henrietta had almost started four fights on the way here. And then to top it off I get the door slammed in my face because I had the _nerve_ to carry a firearm with me.

"Any ideas?" I ask the assembled task force.

Henrietta and Peyton open their mouths, but I cut them off with a sweep of my hand. "Ideas that don't involve bombs, killing, or seduction."

Both of them close their mouths.

Hisashi folds his arms. "We'll have to disarm and come back tomorrow. As it stands, we're not going to be able to search the place at all."

"In the meantime, our target could be going wherever he wants." Chris mutters, still playing with the elaborate mechanical gag. To be honest, it looks like it's designed to be more of a torture device now than a simple device to shut Peyton up. "Though I hate to say it, the walrus has the right idea."

"…walrus?"

"SEAL, whatever." He twists a screwdriver and the device suddenly snaps together like a bear trap. "We need that information pronto, and that guy's in the way."

"If we hurt anyone down here, we lose any scrap of credibility we have. It will be impossible to operate in this city at all." I shoot back. "We can't forget that Kirito could still be in this city right now. If we get locked out, we're going to have a very hard time getting to him and apprehending him."

Christopher clips the gag to his belt and fishes a cigarette out of his pocket. He fumbles around in his pockets for a few seconds before sighing and giving up. Still with the unlit cigarette in his mouth he turns and looks up at the darkening sky. "You're the boss."

I sigh. If the Secretary of the Navy, Raybus May, hadn't chosen me specifically for this mission…

"Let's pack it in for the night. We'll come back tomorrow and find ask around. It doesn't look like we can make much more productive headway tonight." I take a deep breath in. "First thing tomorrow we'll get the information we need and go after Kirito."

Silica yawns. Lizbeth raises an arm. "Can we find somewhere to stay down here? There's no point in leaving only to come back." She swings the keys to the helicopter around on her index finger. "After all, I'm billing you for the fuel I'm using to cart you around."

I cover my eyes with left hand. "Okay, sure."

Lizbeth immediately turns on her heel and practically drags Silica down the street back the way we had come. Reasoning that she must have seen some sort of hotel on our way, the rest of the task force follows behind. She leads us to a building hollowed out of what must have been a really large boat at one time. A rectangular hole had been cut out of the side allowing easy access to the interior. To be honest, it's quite nice inside the ship.

We are welcomed by a pretty woman behind a desk. "Welcome! How many rooms can I get you?"

I consider for a second. Hisashi, Peyton and Silica should probably share a room, which leaves Chris and I in one room and Lizbeth and Henrietta in another. "Three-" I begin.

"Four." Lizbeth overrides me.

I glance at her. What the heck is up with her? She has that glint in her eyes that I had come to realize wasn't usually a good thing. I roll my eyes as she finishes the transaction and hands me a key with a number written on it. I glance at the number. Thirty-two.

The receptionist is talking to Lizbeth again, and I perk my ear to listen in.

"It's no trouble. We're not very bust right now, so there are quite a few rooms available. In fact there's only one other guest tonight."

Lizbeth nods politely while signing some sort of agreement. The receptionist continues to talk at us, despite our noncommittal grunts and flat out disinterest. Once all the papers are signed, she gives us all a cheery smile. "I hope you enjoy your stay at Battleship Inn!"

I smile back weakly and nod. I can only hope.

The room with "32" written on it is on the third floor, but would still have been underwater if the ship had been in water. Despite that, once inside I had an excellent view of the setting sun. The outer hull of the ship had been cut open and a balcony installed on the outside. The accommodations are the nicest I've seen since I last was at my home in Aincrad.

I allow myself a small smile. Maybe tonight won't be so bad.

A chill goes down my spine. In retrospect, I should have realized that though would doom me.

Behind me, the lock on the door turns of its own accord. Someone else must have a key to my room. I extend my hand down to my sidearm.

The door opens and Lizbeth walks in. She rolls her eyes at my stance before sitting down on the bed. I slowly relax my stance. "What are you doing in here?"

"Why wouldn't I? It's my room for the night." She tosses a shiny object in my direction.

I catch it and examine it. It's a key, with the number "32" printed on it. It takes me a second for my brain to catch up. She booked us into the same room. I look back at her. She's sitting on the bed and poking through her inventory. I feel the need to point out that there's only one bed.

…So she's going to be a hassle this entire trip, huh?

"Great. The view from here is nice. You'll like it. I'll go find where Christopher is staying-"

"Actually, you're going to be in here." She purses her lips, but it fails to hide the smile she's suppressing.

I narrow my eyes. "What are you up to?"

She sighs. "Come on. You and I haven't talked in a while."

I remain silent.

We stare at each other for a few awkward minutes.

Eventually, she clears her throat. "I, um, wanted to apologize for what I said-"

"It's okay. I wasn't aware that you didn't like boats, so it's my fault." I cut her off. "I realize I was being pushy."

She gives me a withering glare. "Don't interrupt me."

"Yessir." I deadpan.

Her eye twitches. "I was _planning_ on apologizing for how harsh I was when we decided of military branches. It wasn't quite fair for me to say… well." She coughs. "With your attitude though, I'm pretty sure this was a mistake."

I rub my face with both hands. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry for being rude. It's… it's been a really long day. Yeah, apology accepted. Can I go find where Christopher is staying now?"

Her glare gets more intense.

I throw my hands I the air. "What do you want from me? I'm done with dealing with complicated stuff today. Between Peyton's blathering, Henrietta's desire to shoot everything within sight, and the mapmaker's stubbornness, not to mention you undercutting what little authority I have, I just want to get to sleep and let someone else deal with you." I grumble out the next line to myself. "I'm not cut out for this soldier business."

"What I want is to talk to you. If you would stop making it so difficult, this would be a lot easier on the both of us."

I turn around and bang my head into the wall. It's quite painful, since the ships walls are made of metal. "Okay, fine. What do you need?"

"We… I'm sorry about what I said back when we entered the simulation."

I manage to bite back a retort about how she had already said that.

She continues. "I was surprised when you didn't immediately try to follow me into the air service like Kuradeel did to Asuna. Honestly, it kinda hurt a bit. I mean, you're usually the one to make the brash decisions, you know? So when you suggested I chase after you a day later, I… lost it. After I said what I said, I felt really bad, but I couldn't figure out what to say. That's why I ignored your calls. When I finally figured out what to say, you had already stopped calling, and… I let my feelings turn to resentment, since you had apparently given up on me. Once I heard about the mission, I decided to get some revenge. Make you sweat for a while, but it didn't feel right. And now…"

Silence stretches between us for what feels like an eternity.

I hear a hiccup behind me. I turn away from the wall to see her hugging her knees, her eyes watering.

Anger and sympathy battle each other for dominance in my head. I take a few slow steps until I'm standing right in front of her.

Then I drop to my knees and embrace her, sympathy winning out.

She startles, but doesn't pull away.

I'm not good with words, so I decide not to say anything. Instead, I just hold her close. I can feel her body slowly relaxing, and she eventually returns the embrace, throwing her arms around me in turn.

We remain like that for a while. I wasn't really paying much attention to the time. Lizbeth takes a deep shuddering breath and relaxes her grip somewhat, enough to allow her to look at me.

"Klein, I-"

_KNOCK KNOCK. _"Klein? It's urgent news from HQ." Henrietta's voice comes from the door. "It's one of your friends."

Lizbeth blinks a few times, then seems to realize what she's doing. She pulls away and brushes herself off, but if the color of her face is any indication, she's feeling just as embarrassed as I am. I take a deep breath to calm myself and walk to the door and open it a crack. "What is it?"

"Do you know a Kuradeel?" Henrietta asks without showing any emotions on her face.

"Yeah, he was with us in Aincrad. What's he got to do with this?"

"You had better come with me." She gestures to her room. "I have Secretary May on hold."

I turn back to the room. Lizbeth tilts her head at me. I shrug. _I'll be right back._ I try to convey through my expression.

She seems to get the gist of it and sinks back to the bed.

Henrietta waits for me to lock up and leads me to her room two doors down in room twenty-eight. Before I can question her, she picks up the phone and presses the talk button. "Secretary May?" She pauses for an answer. "Yes, he's here." Another pause and she turns to me. "Turn on the TV."

I fumble around for a second before I hit the correct button on the side of the large screen mounted to the wall. Instead of any sort of regular channel, the TV displays the SEAL logo.

Henrietta presses a button on the phone and the hiss from the connection gets louder. Secretary May's voice comes from the phone. "Klein, you there?"

"Yessir."

"Good. We have a situation that requires your urgent attention."

I raise an eyebrow. "I thought we were already on an urgent mission?"

"This is a lot worse. I'm told that you were friends with a Kuradeel?"

"Yeah, he's my friend. He's part of our group."

"Then you might want to look at this."

The TV screen suddenly switches from the SEAL logo to a paused video feed. Kuradeel is centered in the shot.

Secretary May says one last line before turning on the video. "We received this less than twenty minutes ago. As far as we can tell, it's authentic, which is quite worrying as you will see."

The video starts playing back. Kuradeel comes to life and starts talking.

"Good evening to you, heads of the five military branches of Gunstorm. My name is Kuradeel. I am a soldier within the Army branch, but as of now I am claiming independence from that organization. Now, you may be thinking that I'm some crackpot, but I have a very good reason for sending this recording to all of you. I am asking all of you to recognize me as the leader of your respective organizations."

My blood runs cold. That's Kuradeel's voice, and it sure looks like him, but his eyes are wild and manic.

"You may then ask what right I have to demand that of you. My answer is this."

He hefts a big shiny box onto the desk he is sitting in front of, jarring the camera slightly. "This is something I believe you've all heard of, but on the off chance that you haven't heard, I'll tell you. This is called a football. It's a bomb so great it can shift the very geography of Gunstorm. Nice, huh? It's the holy grail of bombs, and I have it. My conditions are this. Give me control of all five military branches before midnight a week from tonight or else I press these buttons and take you all with me. So there you have it. I eagerly await your answer."

The video pauses again with Kuradeel half out of his chair. The Secretary interjects a comment. "There's several things wrong with what he's said, but we can go over that in a second. For now, watch what happens when he bumps into the camera."

The video continues to play back and I watch with rapt attention. What is Kuradeel doing? What's the football? And why isn't Asuna with him?

The table is jarred violently and the camera falls over and bounces to face to the left of where Kuradeel had been filming himself. The lens ends up showing us a shot of a doorway. Again, the video pauses and the image is lightened by several shades. What appears to be a bed and someone tied to it appears from the lightened picture.

"Asuna." I say. The bright orange hair was practically a dead giveaway.

"You recognize the hostage? That's interesting. Anyway, I'll compile some data and send it to Henrietta by tomorrow morning. For now, get some sleep. Tomorrow you'll be tasked with taking him down. This new mission takes priority over your mission to take down Kazuto Kirigaya, understood?"

I nod. "Clearly, sir."

"Secretary May out."

The phone clicks dead and the TV suddenly goes back to its regular programming. I nod to Henrietta on my way out and head back to my room.

When I open the door I find Lizbeth passed out on the bed. I purse my lips. Should I wake her up and tell her the news?

The decision is taken away from me when Silica starts pounding on the door frantically, startling Lizbeth awake.

I give her bewildered expression a sloppy grin. "Looks like the day's not over yet."

She throws a pillow at me.

* * *

Only one of our party of seven got any sleep that night. Lizbeth, Silica and I were too busy trying to consolidate the Kuradeel we know with this new facet of his personality. Hisashi and Peyton stayed up to comfort Lizbeth. Henrietta had stayed up waiting for the information to come it, endlessly stripping her rifle down and reassembling it in the corner of the room. Christopher had just covered his head with his pillow when we told him and told us to wake him when it was time to go.

Now, all of us had gathered in the breakfast area of the hotel. The hold of ship had been retrofitted to be the dining hall, complete with fake marble pillars to give it an old feel. The receptionist was evidently also the cook, and had made us all a nice breakfast which had remained largely uneaten. Henrietta opens her menu and sends each of a document.

"This is a joint effort between all five branches of the military." She begins. "Most of this data is on the device known as the football, since little is known about Kuradeel. We were hoping his former friends could shed some light on that, but first we'll go over this report.

"Kuradeel, one of six transfers from the Aincrad server has obtained an object known as the football. He then proceeded to threaten the five leaders of the five branches, including Secretary of the Navy Raybus May. He threatens to use this football to kill a significant portion of the population unless he is given complete control of all five branches of the military.

"We have been tasked with apprehending him before he can carry out his plan."

I grimace. "But we don't know where he is."

Henrietta shakes her head. "Actually, we do. His transmission wasn't set up properly, and we were able to trace his location to within a relatively small area. The real problem with this operation is that it's a few orders of magnitude worse than he thinks it is."

She points to one specific document for us all to look at. "This describes the football as the public knows it, and this-" She sends another file and I open it alongside the first one. "-is the true nature of the football. In the public file, you'll note that it says that it's essentially a giant bomb."

Christopher gives a low whistle. "If this bomb is real, and these numbers are right, than this defeats the point of using it. You'll vaporize yourself before anything productive happens."

Henrietta nods. "That was what the public and lower ranking members of each branch are told. That way, anyone who could find it would think twice about setting off for fear of killing themselves. The reality is a lot worse. If you'll read the classified file, you'll see its true nature."

"A… remote detonation device?" Peyton says doubtfully. "That sounds a lot better than a massive bomb."

"You would be correct, but the type of bomb it detonates is the type described in the public document. Of course, if the football is used, several of those will go off, killing every single person on the server and keeping them dead. It leaves behind radioactive fields that will kill anyone exposed to them instantly. Lives stop meaning anything."

We all fall silent for a few moments.

"So we need to stop him before he really kills all of us for good or the powers that be hand over the reins to him." Hisashi scratches his chin. "You said we know where he is?"

Henrietta brings up a map. "Ironically, Kuradeel gave us just enough time to get down there to stop him." She traces out a route on the map. "If we follow this path down, we will have about one day to take him down if we leave before noon today."

I glance at my clock. It's eight thirty AM. We have plenty of time.

"Lastly, we know he has a hostage, believed to be Asuna, who he was supposedly taking his leave with."

The still frame from last night is brought up. The computer people back at the base had cleaned up the picture very well, though it's still hard to tell if it's Asuna or not. There could be some other girl with orange hair… but it's unlikely.

"I'll send you the path data now." Henrietta presses a few invisible buttons and the path data appears in front of me. "Now, we need to finish preparing-"

Behind us, the receptionist slash cook grips her frilly maid uniform while staring at the disappearing shards of plate. She turns around and blinks in surprise.

"Mr. Klutz! I didn't see you there! I apologize."

A way too familiar voice comes from a table obscured by a decorative plant resting next to one of the faux-marble pillars. "No big deal. I shouldn't have had my foot out like that."

A stunned silence grips Lizbeth, Silica and I. My voice is the first to recover.

"Kirito?"

More silence.

Then, from the other side of the giant plant, "Oh sssssshit."


	21. Chapter 21: Helicopter, Helicopter

(Kirito's Perspective)

After escaping the Special Operations base, I headed down to the slums as Yui indicates. She wanted me to find some maps.

"Then we can get into the tower easily, and we can find some better equipment along the way." Was the line that sold me on the concept.

I descended into the slums and got yelled at by several people with badges for carrying weapons within the city limits. One in particular seemed to be in a hurry to get me out of the city, even going so far as to tell me that any maps I could find are worthless. He did tell me where I could find some maps though. I left and stashed my weapons outside the city in a manner Yui suggested, a dirty rucksack that inexplicably can hold a two foot long rifle inside of it.

As I walk the streets, I still get eyed up and down, but nobody seems to be outright hostile anymore. I head for the map shop indicated by the sheriff guy.

"Is that it?" I ask Yui. Since I had to ditch the visor, she's currently communicating to me through an almost invisible earpiece.

"I am unsure, though this does seem to be the shop. It does have the word 'maps' written on it."

"Okay then." I take a breath. "Let's go." I knock on the door. After a few seconds a grumpy-looking old man opens the door just enough to peer at me with one eye.

"Whaddaya want?"

"I... I'm looking for some maps." I supply.

"You got any weapons on ya?" His eye narrows suspiciously.

"I disarmed myself before entering the city." Which is technically true, but not really that honest.

The door swings open wide enough to allow me to enter. The shop is dark and gloomy. Large cabinets hold what must be thousands of maps. In the center of the room sit three wooden desks with lamps on them to look at the wares. I look around for a few minutes before actually attempting to pull a map out of a cabinet. The one I draw out seems to be relatively useless for my purposes as it details a shallow cavern formed of fallen planes near the edge of the server. I'm specifically looking for a map into the central spire, where the end of the simulation is, and if I come across any, A map that leads me deep enough to find some good weapons to get me through the spire's dungeon in one piece.

"Is that whatcher lookin' for?" The old man leers over my shoulder, startling me.

"Agk. No, I need one of the surface around the spire and one that goes very deep." I point to the map I had drawn. "This one details something way out on the border."

"Ah, Then you'll need to check this section." He points to a cabinet of the far side of the room.

I wander over to the cabinet the man suggested and pull out a random map. Laying it down on the desk, the light from the lamp reveals that it does indeed lead deep into the layers that make up Gunstorm.

"This looks pretty straight forward. How close to this is this to the bottom layer?"

The mapmaker shrugs. "Nobody's ever gone deeper than 'bout a mile down. That map ya got there is about three quarters that distance. Most of them start to see things when they get down too low." He spins his index finger around his ear. "Some of them go crazy."

"Pleasant." I look back at the map. "So, there's at least a quarter mile I can descend if I follow this map down to the bottom of it?"

The man purses his lips. "I guess. Never thought of that myself."

I smile. "Alright, I'll take this map. Now, I just need a map leading to the spire in the center of the simulation."

"Why d'you need that?"

I glance away from the map and look at the man. "I don't know where it is."

He gives me a withering look. "It's a bit hard to miss."

"Yes, but I can't enter it if I don't know where the entrance is."

"That won't be a problem, trust me." The map man takes the rolled up map and looks at a stamp on the back corner. "This will run ya 500 Col."

I hand the sum over and take the map. I leave the small building just in time to see something disturbing. Klein, Lizbeth, Silica and a few others I don't recognize are heading for the shop I had just left.

I quickly vacate the area.

"Yui, where's a good place to lie low around here?"

"There's a hotel..."

* * *

The bed was nicer than any I'd slept on in forever. I passed out as soon as I hit the sheets. That night, I dreamed of people, faces I hardly recognize, taking turns grabbing a knife stabbed into me and twisting, all with grins on their faces.

Uhg. My nightmares are getting less and less subtle.

I stumble downstairs to find that the woman who had checked me in last night is now wearing a frilly maid's uniform and is holding a spatula.

"Hello, Mr. Klutz. Did you enjoy your rest?"

I make an effort to smile at her. "The room was very nice, thanks."

"I'm making breakfast now. If you want some, come by the kitchen."

I nod. "Thanks. I'll be there in a few minutes."

She turns to leave but stops before she gets through the door. "Oh, several other guests checked in after you did last night."

"Oh, great. Thanks for the heads up." I again attempt to smile at her. I think I forgot how to do that though, and instead it was more a grimace.

"Yui, where's the entrance on the map in relation to where we are?"

Yui's voice comes through the earpiece. "It's not quite that far. About a day and a half over rough terrain to the east."

"Alright. We'll leave after breakfast."

I head to the dining room. I can faintly hear lots of voices around the corner, but I ignore them in favor of getting to the food. I sit at one of the tables and the woman who runs the inn puts a plate of something unidentifiable in front of me. I thank her out of courtesy and prepare myself to eat it.

Yui chirps in my ear. "Receiving data packet."

I quickly cover the small device with my hand. "From where?

"The other group. Someone transmitted what looks like routing data to everyone within a certain radius of themselves. We happen to be in this radius. From the type of data, it appears to be a recent military survey."

"So those people over there are military?"

"Most likely, yes."

I quickly attempt to stand up, but my leg trips up the maid as I scramble up.

"Mr. Klutz! I didn't see you there! I apologize." Oh, I registered under that name.

"No big deal. I shouldn't have had my foot out like that." I say amicably.

I realize that the other guests have gone completely silent.

"Kirito?" Comes Klein's voice.

More silence.

"Oh sssssshit."

I'm glad I paid in advance. I hardly have time to fish the room key out of my pocket and throw it on the table before I see the blond woman with Klein and the rest yesterday round the divider separating me from their group. She grabs something from her bag and points it at me.

I didn't know they made guns that small.

The bullet tears into my shoulder. I hear something shatter behind me, but I have no time for that now. I bolt for the door.

"Yui, now would be a good time to lead me back to my stuff."

"Turn right here."

I duck another, much louder shot and turn the indicated corner.

"How many of them are there?"

"Seven. One is wearing Navy colors, one is wearing Coast Guard colors, and the other two are from the Special Operations division. The other three are familiar to you. Turn left here."

My boots leave skid marks in the dirt as I attempt to change from running full tilt in one direction to running full tilt in another. "So, why are they going dungeon delving?"

"Do you want me to devote resources to figuring out their current mission?"

Another gunshot. I don't see where this one goes, nor do I really care as long it didn't go through me. "Sure! But let's wait until we're out of here, yeah?"

"Affirmative. Take the third left and climb up on the roof of the blue building."

Somewhere along the twisty path, I lose my pursuers. I continue to run as fast as I can just in case they're still on me right up until I get back to my stash. It's untouched. I quickly unload my gear and strap it on.

Yui pops into my vision once the goggles are on. "Ah, I missed visual representation." She sighs contentedly. "Now, follow the arrow."

"Where are we going? The arrow points south, and I thought you said the map's entrance was east."

"It is. I thought you would want to check out what those seven that were chasing you were doing."

"...Good point." I shift the backpack higher on my shoulders. "Okay, let's go."

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

"Shit!"

Lizbeth kicks a garbage can off to the side.

"We lost him." Hisashi grimaces. "He's certainly fast."

I nod. "He was always fast. Only person faster than him was Asuna- The orange haired girl we think is being held hostage. She was lightning quick whenever she wanted to be."

Christopher sighs heavily. "Two jobs? Come on." He groans to himself before standing up straight. "Let's go save the pretty girl. Asuna. Your boss said she's a higher priority than the guy we evidently can't catch, right?"

"Technically, we're just supposed to find Kuradeel and stop him from detonating a bomb. The fact that he has a hostage kind of pales in comparison to holding the entire server hostage."

Christopher gives a nod of recognition. "Yeah, sure. Why are we still chasing this guy then?"

I point to Henrietta, whose eyes are scaring people out her way with their intensity. She clutches her rifle hard.

"It is inexcusable to let him go."

I resist rolling my eyes with all my might. "I have a feeling we don't have to."

Chris smiles, unlit cigarette clenched in his teeth. "So, we're giving up on him completely?"

"No." I bring up the map Henrietta had sent us all earlier. "Henrietta, how large did you set the broadcast range when you sent this?"

"I sent it out with a three meter radius. It was necessary to reach everyone. "

"And was he sitting in that range?"

Lizbeth rubs her jaw. "Well, he was on the other side of the wall that Henrietta had her back to."

"I bet he was!" Silica says.

"And due to his natural curiosity, he's likely to check out our map rather than whatever he had bought for himself." I smirk.

"Then it's now a race to see if we can beat him down to Asuna." Lizbeth snorts. "Okay, let's go to the helicopter. We can't afford to waste time."

"Wait." Henrietta stops Lizbeth. "What if he doesn't follow our chart?"

"Then we'll still be following orders. This new mission takes priority."

The female sniper kicks the dirt and growls to herself, but turns to follow us as we change direction to head for the helicopter.

I match pace with Lizbeth. "Thanks for that. I can't convince her of anything."

Lizbeth looks back at the still grumbling woman. "She _does_ outrank you, technically. It's only due to the weird circumstances that you're in charge."

I shake my head. "That sheriff we got directions from? He used to be on her team. She just does whatever she wants normally. I'm just glad someone has even the slightest amount of control over her."

"I'm honored." Lizbeth deadpans.

"Yeah, yeah, cut the sarcasm. Where did you park the helicopter again?"

Lizbeth points up and to the left, over the closest group of ramshackle huts. If I squint, I think I can see it.

"We'd better hurry. No telling what kind of transportation Kirito's procured." Hisashi interrupts us.

"Right." I turn back to the road ahead and press on.

It takes us about fifteen minutes to reach the chopper while lightly jogging. Lightly jogging for me, at least. Silica looks like she was just forced to run a marathon, and Lizbeth is a bit winded. Hisashi, Henrietta, Christopher and Peyton are all fine, probably due to their training.

Lizbeth slides into the pilot's seat without missing a beat. "Everyone in. We're taking off as soon as we can."

I slide into the seat directly behind hers, while Silica joins her up front and Henrietta dangles her legs out the side door.

I stop watching Lizbeth's frantic pre-flight checklist to watch the sniper pull out her rifle, screw something onto the weapon, slide out a panel from the side of the chopper-

Is she mounting her rifle to the helicopter? It turns out she is, and before I know it the helicopter is winding up and preparing to lift off the metal landing pad.

"We're leaving in three!" Lizbeth yells over the sounds of the rotors.

"Three minutes? What's the holdup?"

"No, three seconds!" She pulls on the throttle and we're suddenly not quite as close to the ground as I would like.

Helicopters are a lot smoother than dragons. Dragons have these wingbeats that bump you up and down and threaten to buck you off every downswing. Helicopters, by comparison, are just a load rumbling that vibrates you down to your core. If I had to pick one I liked better, it would be the helicopter. The helicopter is also enclosed, if you don't have a teammate dangling herself out the side to aim a precision weapon at the ground racing past.

The ground whips past, the panels making up the walkable surface blurring into an endless stream of hills and holes.

"Klein!"

I turn my eyes back to the pilot's seat. Lizbeth is stretching her arm back to hand me a headset of some sort. I take it and put it on. The screen lights up to show me a view of the ground rapidly shrinking behind us. I slip the little earbud into my ear. Silica turns back and tosses everyone else a headset too.

"Can you all hear me?" Lizbeth asks.

A resounding chorus of affirmatives.

"Good, 'cause we're about to be under attack." The radar in the bottom corner of the visor shows a red dot approaching us. "Prepare for evasive maneuvers."

Peyton glances around. "Prepare for what?"

Suddenly, the helicopter twists sideways, almost pitching me out of the side door. Peyton loses his balance and is three quarters gone before Hisashi snags his hand and hauls him back into the chopper.

An ear-splitting report comes from Henrietta's rifle. I attempt to see if the bullet found its target but the aggressor is out of my viewing range before I can even identify what it was. The helicopter makes another sickening move to resume our previous path. Whatever our enemy is, it's now directly ahead, and a lot faster than us.

"It's circling back. Klein!"

Lizbeth tosses a small device over her shoulder. I deftly catch it with both hands

"That's the machine gun targeting system. The visor is linked to it. I don't need to tell you what to shoot at, do I?"

_Maybe. Still not sure what we're fighting. _I twist the knobs around on the device and quickly figure out the proper way to control the gun. "Okay, so turn the gun to face-"

The visor blocks my right eye, but I can see with my left as the triangular jet fighter whips past us close enough that the heat from the thrusters makes us all uncomfortably warm.

The visor beeps to indicate that it has acquired a target. I watch the targeting reticle bob around in an attempt to track the jet fighter.

I roll my thumb on one of the knobs and press the firing button. The helicopter jerks as the gun lets loose a hail of metal in the general direction of the enemy. "Who are we fighting?" I ask nobody in particular.

The plane swings around and is heading back for us again. Lizbeth presses a few buttons and someone else's computer suddenly blocks my vision.

"Chaff out!" She yells, before swinging around sideways again. Another sniper shot. Peyton is now hooked into one of the seats, along with Hisashi. Chris is sighing and tossing a grenade up and down like a ball.

Wait, grenade?

The jet plows through the smoke directly above our now-sideways chopper

Chris stops juggling the grenade and steps to the door. His finger taps on the frame of the helicopter in time with a beat only he can hear. "Liz, tell me when he turns around."

"What's on your mind?" She says back.

"Nothing special." He clamps his teeth down on the grenade ring.

"He just turned around." She points the helicopter back in the direction we're supposed to be heading. "Klein, more targets to the rear. Light them up."

I focus on the video feed to my right eye again. Sure enough several helicopters are closing the distance. Four of them, all painted with jagged red straps. I pick one in the center of the formation and open fire. At first, nothing happens. Then the helicopter I was aiming at slowly starts to drift sideways. The other copters move out of the way as the stricken craft descends to the ground and explodes.

"One down!" I call out.

I adjust my aim. The three remaining helicopters split up and one goes to the left, one to the right, and one climbs upwards. The gun I am controlling can only track upwards so far and I quickly lose track of all three.

I stick the controller into a pocket in the side of my seat. "They're coming around on both sides!"

Hisashi quickly unbuckles himself from his seat and grabs onto the side panel next to me, opposite side of Henrietta. Chris is standing over Henrietta, still drumming with one finger. He leans out the door to look forwards.

"Now." Chris says. He rears his hand back and throws the now-primed grenade into empty air. A second of nothing. The jet plane screams by. Half a second later, it explodes.

"Did... Did you just throw a grenade at a jet plane and hit it?" Peyton asks over the channel.

"Yeah, so?"

"Whu-but- how-"

"Quite, Peyton. The helicopters are almost caught up with us." Lizbeth announces.

"I've got the one on the left." Hisashi says.

"I've got the one to starboard." Henrietta says.

Chris grabs onto the straps of one of the seats to keep himself steady.

I pan around with the turret real quick, but none of the helicopters are anywhere to be found. Instead, I watch the one approaching from the left.

Now that I can actually get a good visual, I find an odd scene in front of me. The helicopters aren't armed with weapons. Instead, they are covered in red stripes and are crewed by people dressed in a combination of several uniforms.

"These guys are pirates." I mumble to myself.

Hisashi takes half a step back into the helicopter as the one on our side gets closer and closer. He looks at me, nods once, and throws himself out the door.

I involuntarily track his movements with my head as if on instinct. He lands on the landing strut of the enemy helicopter, draws his pistol with one hand while grabbing onto the side rail with the other.

One of the pirates opens the door to get a bullet to the face. Hisashi disappears into the craft and the door shuts by itself.

Henrietta's rifle discharges once again, and the helicopter on her side starts to whine as its engine fails. Apparently, the shot hit.

Hisashi's face appears in the cockpit window of his helicopter. He shoots someone and wrestles the body out of the way, then sits in the pilot's chair. He dons the headset and fiddles with some of the controls. "-calling Lizbeth. Do you read?"

"Loud and clear. I didn't know you were a ninja on top of being a spy." Lizbeth comments.

"Not much difference, if you ask me." He calls back. "By the way, there's still a helicopter hovering above you guys, remember? And I have no weapons to wipe them out."

Lizbeth laughs. "Oh, I do. Brace, everyone."

The world suddenly tilts backwards, and I get pressed hard into my enemy helicopter doesn't react instantly and flies right ahead into our sights.

"Gotcha." Silica says. She pulls the triggers on the copilot's yoke and fires a stream of hot lead at the enemy craft.

It detonates before it has a chance to turn around.

"Anyone see anything else?" Lizbeth asks over the radio.

I check the rear camera on the visor. "Nothing behind us."

"Nothing I can see." Hisashi broadcasts.

"Nothing." Henrietta pulls out her spent magazine and pockets it, pulling out another and racking in the first round.

"I don't see anything." Silica says.

"Good job then." Lizbeth says. "We'd best continue on. Hisashi, how's your chopper on fuel?"

"Looks like they didn't load this fully. It's already at less than a quarter of its max. Is that enough to get me there?"

Lizbeth counts on her fingers. "It's not gonna make it. We need to land and get you back on our craft."

"No need. I'll be right over."

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

"Look up." Yui tells me in my ear. "Behind you."

I glance away from the ground and look in the indicated direction. I can see a few helicopters.

"What's going on?"

"I do not have that information. However-"

One of the helicopters jerks violently, smoke pouring out of its engine compartment and starts careening away from the other two, before taking a nosedive into the ground.

"You know, I really shouldn't be out in the open like this." I mutter out loud. There aren't many hiding places out here though.

The two remaining helicopters are starting to become easy to identify even with my naked eyes.

Oh, right. My suit has built in camouflage. I quickly tap a few keys and my arm fades to a faint shimmer that could be explained as a trick of the light if one doesn't look closely enough. I'm pretty sure nobody will be able to tell while going that fast in their helicopters.

I continue to watch the two machines as the come closer and closer, until I can identify that one of them has the Air Force markings on it, and the other has red stripes painted haphazardly across it. The one with the red stripes abruptly speeds up, its engines whining.

Once the vehicle is about one hundred feet ahead of the Air Force chopper the side door opens. A man appears in the opening, dressed in black.

The helicopters are aimed slightly to my right, so as they pass I can only see the inside the red striped helicopter. I can also see the man jumping from the door of the helicopter in question.

For a moment, I wait to see the man as he falls. When nobody comes from the sky, I continue to track the helicopters. The one with the red stripes starts to drift away from the arrow straight path the Air Force one is taking, listlessly carving a wide arc in the sky.

"Yui, do you know where that helicopter is going?"

"There is little of interest on the surface in that direction, including a lack of Air Force facilities. Given the fact that Lizbeth joined the Air Force and they are headed along the same route you are taking, it is a good chance it is the group that was hunting you earlier."

Sure enough, they're heading directly for the marker Yui put on my map...

"Hey, where's that other helicopter? I didn't hear it crash." I look around, attempting to locate it.

A large red blip is added to the small map in the corner of my vision. The helicopter had continued in a circle, and is now coming quite close. It's also losing altitude gradually.

"It will not reach you, since it will crash before it reaches your position." Yui reassures me.

"Ah, but wouldn't it be better if I could get into it and use it to catch up to Lizbeth and the rest?"

"Yes, that would be useful." Yui informs me.

Heat and sound wash over me as the helicopter comes to an end behind my back.

"Do you think anything useful is in that wreck?" I ask.

"There's always a possibility. If you don't spend too much time there, you shouldn't be much farther behind Klein's group than if you decided to head straight there."

My mind made up, I turn and head for the large plume of smoke rising from the downed vehicle. It's not far away, but it is far enough that none of the broken pieces hit me.

"Hey Yui, why didn't this shatter into crystals like items and monsters when they're all worn out?"

"Technically, this vehicle still has 30 HP, which is steadily decreasing at a rate of 2 HP a minute. If efforts were made to restore it, it is technically recoverable."

"That sounds like something I should do." I Approach the twisted metal hulk which is burning at one end.

"It would take too much time."

I sigh. Oh well. Let's hope there's something worthwhile around here. I slowly start picking through the shrapnel littering the ground. I gather anything that seems useful in a small pile off to the side before taking a deep breath before heading into the remains of the vehicle. It's pretty hard to see with all the smoke, and I find nothing. I don't know if there's truly nothing in there of if I couldn't see it.

I crouch in front of the pile to start sorting through the loose items. "Yui, how much time is left before the helicopter is gone?"

"Seven minutes, forty-seven seconds until it detonates." Comes the prompt response.

"Thanks." I pull a revolver that looks like it would be too small for even Silica from the pile. I pop out the cylinder and dump out the ammo. Yui tells me to keep the ammo, since it's something one of my guns can use.

I don't have anything this small in my possession, but whatever. I get through most of the small pile when Yui gives me a heads-up.

"Multiple hostiles approaching."

"What? From where?"

"From the general direction we came from. They seem to be broadcasting the same identification codes as the helicopter behind you."

I glance over my shoulder at the wreck. Though the smoke had obscured some of the marks, the overall red stripe pattern can still be seen. "And the reason they're hostile?"

"The identification codes they're using are designated hostile by default. They must be either suicidal or prepared to fight any military face they come across."

I take a deep breath and walk around to the back of the helicopter. Here, they wouldn't see me as they approach.

The steady rhythm of the blades holding the enemy craft in the air become louder as the craft approaches. The flames from the broken hull in front of me flicker and dance towards me in the wind. The smoke blows over me and obscures a good part of my vision. By the time it blows away, the other helicopter has landed and troops are stepping out the side door.

One in particular catches my eye. He has an eye patch and is obviously giving orders to the rest of the men. They lack any sort of cohesive uniform, but all of them are sporting the red stripes painted all over their equipment. They also all carry guns with wooden bodies and a curved magazine, some kind of rifle.

The leader nods as the last man steps out of the helicopter. The engine winds down and his booming voice resounds out. "Alright, spread out and see if any of them survived. Scavenge any gear you find too." He makes a series of hand gestures and the six other men walk towards the wreckage in groups of two.

I duck back behind cover and look at the mini map in the corner of my vision. The first group is heading straight towards me from the other side of the wreck. Another group starts picking around in the rubble and the third is moving around the front of the downed helicopter.

I open my inventory and quickly scan through the items.

"Kirito, stop there. See the pistol? It has a silencer." Yui's voice comes through.

"Good. I'll take that and my combat knife."

The two item materialize in my palms and I give them both a brief inspection. The knife is on the large side, closer to a machete really. It's very light which makes it a poor substitute for the heavy one handed swords I preferred in Aincrad. The pistol shoots 9mm ammo, which is one of the medium sized bullets. On the end is a six inch tube that I assume is the silencer.

I attach the knife to my hip with a strap hanging from the end and check that the gun is loaded. Once I confirm it, I slowly stand upright with my back to the shell of flying machine. The two blips on my map are just about to come into sight.

I aim the gun right to where I expect the first of the enemy to appear. Finger on the trigger, aim-

The first man rounds the corner. I adjust my aim and squeeze the trigger.

At that moment, the man stops and moves as if to hold a hand to his ear. The bullet whips right past his face.

Meanwhile, I have startled myself by just how loud the "silenced" weapon was. It's not like it was silent, more like if someone coughed. The man that had rounded the corner, more or less a kid my age had recovered his wits enough to aim his rifle at me. His partner also rounds the corner. Both of them have res streaks painted on their face like claw marks.

The kid shouts before I have a chance to do anything, but he isn't given the time to do anything else as I pull the trigger a few times and take them both down.

I've been in this world for a few days now, but this is my first time actually firing a gun. Something I hadn't realized or appreciated until this moment was just how hard guns are to aim. That sniper that's currently with Klein, Lizbeth and Silica most be really good with her weapons. The recoil too is also heavier than I expected and I almost fumbled the gun.

Several more shouts come from the other side of the helicopter. It's clear that hiding isn't an option anymore.

I turn and peer through the side doors of the helicopter. Only one of the people with the red stripes can be seen from my vantage point. I carefully aim and pull the trigger.

Again the gun threatens to buck out of my hand. However, I at least managed to hit my target this time. The man crumples to the ground.

More shouts. Extremely loud reports come in rapid bursts, presumably from the rifles the enemies are holding. One of the bullets whips past my ear with an audible whine. The plate of metal I'm resting on to stay hidden is now riddled by holes. Their rifles must be pretty powerful to punch through it like that. I take a step back and fire back where the bullets came from, but my 9mm round just bounces off the siding of the downed vehicle.

I lie down on the ground and crawl towards the back of the wreck while keeping an eye on my map. The three red dots cluster together, obviously trying to prevent me from sneaking up on them.

Maybe I should get out some better gear? I take out the visor (I really should have put it on earlier) and slip it on.

Yui appears and gives me a grin. I smile back before scanning all the rest of the data the goggles are giving me. Most useful at the moment is the thermal overlay. Three outlines appear in my vision and show where each of the remaining enemies are. I pick the gun back up to my eye and start stepping sideways to get a firing angle on the trio.

The visor also displays a circle that goes wherever I aim the pistol. That's going to make aiming it a lot easier. I poke my head out from around the fuselage and immediately draw back as three weapons fire back at me. Okay, I need a new plan.

"Yui, have any ideas?"

"I would recommend taking the Barrett M95 out and use it to take care of the enemies without exposing yourself." My inventory opens and displays the long rifle I had packed from the storehouse.

I pull the weapon out and immediately notice the massive weight of it. "Yui, what is this?"

"It's a Barrett M95 Anti-Material rifle. It's designed to be used against tanks and other heavily armored vehicles. It uses .50 BGM ammunition-"

I swing the weapon around and aim it at the trio. It has a large scope on top, but that is probably not going to help since I'm firing from behind a metal wall. Instead, I gently move the gun until the circle is lined up with the three silhouettes on my visor.

"Kirito, it's a bad idea to fire that one standing-"

I squeeze the trigger and almost lose my arm to the recoil. It knocks me backwards and I land flat on my ass.

The visor is jarred off of my eyes as well. I reach up to fix it back in place only to find the last two enemies are moving rapidly around the helicopter in opposite directions. I drop the heavy weapon down and pick up the pistol. My arm still hurts from the shock of the M95, and even just drawing the pistol up to eye level sends a wave of pain through my arm.

Of course, there's two of them, so I'm at a disadvantage. Maybe-

They both appear at the same time, possibly on an unheard signal. The two rifles start reporting and I crash down to the ground. Bullets whiz past in both directions. I roll sideways to avoid the incoming fire, the rounds impacting the ground where I had been. I come to a stop once I hit the wreckage right as the two rifles stop spewing bullets in a hail.

Both of the men frantically attempt to reload their weapons. I seize the opportunity and fire at both of them. My bullets find their marks and the two fall to the ground.

I slowly stand up and look around. I had taken down all six-

Wait, what about the big guy that was leading them? He wasn't even on the radar, so-

I whirl around just in time to see the man I had forgotten about raise a pistol and pull the trigger. The bullet impacts my leg, sending me back to the ground.

"Who the hell are you?" He starts to top over to me, pistol still pointed in my direction. Now that he's getting closer, I can see that he has a Special Operations camouflage suit like I have. "Are you the guy who took down one of our helicopters?"

"No, it was-"

He cuts me off. "I'm gonna make you pay for this. For taking out my men." His pistol is trained on my face.

A timer appears at the edge of my vision, counting down from ten.

What's that for? I can't think of what- OH SHIT.

I get my one good leg under me and rocket forward and up, jetting past the burly man. He turns to follow me, his face confused.

Then the helicopter detonates. A giant fireball so bright that the sky seems dark in comparison. The shock wave sends me tumbling down a slight incline away from the craft until I crash into a rock.

"Ouch." I groan and look around. The man in the camouflage suit is lying on the ground a bit closer to the helicopter, not having been propelled far enough to get sent down the slope like I had. He seems to be on fire.

He gets to his feet and starts shuffling towards me. He no longer even has a weapon in his hand, but he has a disturbing gleam in his eye.

I raise my pistol and fire it three times. All three shots go wide and the slide locks back to tell me that the gun is empty. I grab the machete off my hip and hurl it at him. He swats it out of the air and continues to approach.

I attempt to stand up, but my leg with the bullet wound is still in too much pain and I fall back down to the ground.

The man reaches me and stands over me, breathing heavily and still on fire.

And then he collapses on the ground.

"No life signs detected, Kirito." Yui informs me.

I sigh. "That's... A relief." I again try to stand up, this time being more careful. My leg holds, but only barely. I go into my inventory and pull out a medical kit, using it on my leg. The pain is still there, but I can see my flesh growing to fill the hole.

"With this injury, it's gonna take me forever to get to the opening." I grumble.

"Not necessarily." Yui says. Her projection in the goggles points to where I had come from. I slowly climb back over the hill and instantly figure out what she's talking about. A small smile crosses my lips.

"Well, if they're just going to leave their helicopters out in the open like that, I think they deserve to lose it."

* * *

A/N: Kirito has horrible trigger discipline. Do not copy his style.


	22. Chapter 22: Big Damn Hero

Before you start reading this chapter, go look up a size comparison between a 7.62x51mm round and a .50 cal round. It'll help you make a good size comparison of different rifle bullets. Both are used in sniper rifles.

I hope you enjoy the chapter!

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

"We're about to land. Make sure you're not gonna fall out when we do." Lizbeth adjusts another few dials in the cockpit while the ground rises to meet us.

The area around here is different than the scattered covering of metal that most of the surface of this simulation seems to have. Instead, it's a pit leading down deep into the ground. There's an ill-defined path leading downwards in roughly a spiral shape. The top opening is too far across for even Henrietta to get a good shot, and I'm told that the hole in the bottom is over three hundred and fifty feet down below the surface.

Due to the nature of traveling underground this pit saves about two days of travel. Usually there's junk in the way creating hazardous areas, dead ends and places for vicious things to nest. Add on top of that the need for sleep and someone on watch on top of food requirements, saving two days sounds like a bargain deal.

The reality is that the comparatively short trek down into this funnel is six hours of nerve wracking shuffling along the edge of exposed girders, leaping from small sheets of jagged metal onto unstable oil-coated beams, and swinging along bundles of cables tied into ropes. Yes, it saves time. I'd still rather never have to try it. Time isn't on our side though, and if we try to find a way around, we'll be way too late to stop Kuradeel from activating his bomb. The week long deadline he set makes this the only route to him that we can manage, and even that is on a bare minimum of rest at each planned stop down.

I glance over to Hisashi. He and Peyton are busy fiddling with some kind of harness system. Lots of straps held together with rings and metal clips. Peyton steps into one of them and Hisashi fiddles with it before giving the main rope hanging off of it a good tug. Peyton is pulled off balance, but the rope holds.

The helicopter lands at that moment and Peyton is again thrown off balance and he falls out of the side door and onto the pavement. Lizbeth looks like she's about to say something, but in the end just shakes her head.

I approach Hisashi, who is now putting on one of the rope harnesses himself. "What do you have there?"

He looks up. "Ah, Klein. These are climbing harnesses. This will let us get down there faster than if we had to circle the path along the rim." He pulls out a metal contraption that clicks as he ratchets it open and closed. "You can thread this onto the rope and descend at whatever pace you wish. We just need to find a good place to anchor the descent rope to."

I give the opening of the hole an appraising look. This entire area is remarkably smooth compared with the rest of the simulation. "That might be a bit difficult."

Behind me, the rest of our group has exited the helicopter and Peyton is back on his feet, grumbling and rubbing where he landed.

Hisashi nods at me. "I understand your concern. I do have an idea though."

He gets out of his seat and exits the helicopter, me close behind. He heads right to Lizbeth.

She notices the serious look on the face usually relaxed and arches an eyebrow. "Hisashi? What is it?"

"I have an idea." Hisashi demonstrates the harness and little descent gadget again. Lizbeth bites her lower lip.

"Where are you going to anchor the rope to?" Lizbeth asks. "There's not much here in the way of good anchors."

"I was hoping to use your helicopter." Hisashi says.

Lizbeth's eye twitches. "Not happening."

I take a deep breath and jump in. "Liz, it'll save us a bit of time and it's a lot safer."

She glares daggers at me. "That would require me setting the helicopter to be owned by nobody, or else the ropes couldn't be connected. If I set it to have no ownership, then anyone who comes along can just steal it without any trouble."

"Oh." I take a step back.

Hisashi continues. "This will save us a bit more time, and it's also a lot safer. There's no risk of slipping or falling."

"How much more time?" Lizbeth counters.

Hisashi hesitates. "About three hours, I'd say. Not a lot. The main benefit is definitely how much safer it is."

Lizbeth looks nonplussed. "I've never seen one of these before, but I've heard of them. I'm pretty sure quite a few people die using these. Don't they have a tendency to fail spectacularly?"

Hisashi shakes his head. "That's only if the person using it doesn't know what they're doing."

Lizbeth sweeps her hand around at the three of us not in the Special Operations group. "None of us have had training with these."

Henrietta interjects. "Actually, I was trained in their use."

Christopher lazily holds up some rigging that looks similar to what Hisashi's wearing. "I know what I'm doing."

She glares at me. I hold my hands up and shake my head. I've never touched something like that before. She rubs her forehead as her thoughts whirl along in her mind. She unconsciously starts to worry her lower lip. "Ah, damn. That really is the best option." She heaves a large sigh. "Fine, we'll use my helicopter as an anchor. If it's gone when we get back I'm gonna make sure one of your branches gets me a new one."

She heads back to the cockpit to make the adjustments to allow us to hook up to her craft.

Chris taps me on the shoulder. "Klein, come here for a second."

I shrug and follow him to the edge of the pit. It does indeed go very far down, and for a second I get the shivers as I imagine what would happen if I fell off.

Christopher points to the wall across from us, about a hundred feet below the rim of the pit. "See that over there? The back half of the plane?"

I do see it. It's actually along the path we would have to take if we were going to descend normally. "Yeah, I see it. There's a large grey box in there, right?"

"Yeah. Looks like a bomb case. The kind we use to carry around really dangerous stuff. Why do you think it's there?"

I purse my lips as I think. It doesn't look like it would be easy to get the cart there, seeing as there's no direct, solid path to wheel it down.

"Maybe the plane was transporting it?" I venture a guess.

"No, it's a passenger plane. Those don't carry explosives." His finger traces the path downwards. "If you look, you can see someone pushed the cart up there from that armored truck down a little ways. There's a direct path and everything."

"Okay." I wait a few second, but he seems to be done talking. "So, why do we care?"

"We know Kuradeel was good with explosives. If he's the one that put that there, there's got to be a reason."

"We're not going to be any close to there." I remind him. "We're going to use that rope system-"

"Rappelling." He interjects.

"Whatever. We're not going to be over on that side of the pit."

"Yes, but-"

Silica pops into view. "Lizbeth says to put this on." She holds out a harness to me. Hers is already on, and by tracing the rope with my eyes can see she's already anchored to the runner on the helicopter. I take the harness and step into it the same way that I had seen Hisashi do it. Silica reaches up and tightens some things on the back. "All ready to go!"

Indeed, my cable is attached to the runner as well. I pat her on the head and turn back to Christopher only to find his muttering and hooking up his own system. I guess I'll talk to him later.

Now that everyone is harnessed up, Hisashi directs us to the edge of the pit and informs Lizbeth and me the proper way to use the gear. Henrietta, Peyton, Silica and Christopher immediately take a step backwards off the side of the pit and start descending, seeing as they know what they're doing.

Lizbeth opts to go off the edge first. Hisashi guides her into position and describes the proper way to use the ratchet, along with several warnings not to touch anything else.

She takes a deep breath and slowly makes her way over the edge, much slower than the rest of our group. I distract myself with fiddling with the device on the rope. It consists of two bits of plastic that squeeze shut and let the rope pass through, then clamp it again once released. There's a tether to it from my harness that ensures I'm not going to fall to my death. Unless it snaps.

And with that depressing thought, it's my turn.

"Alright Klein, take a few steps back up to the edge." Hisashi says. "Hold the brake lever in and let the rope pay out. Let it clamp back shut once you take a single step over the edge."

I glance over the edge into the spiraling abyss. I swear the pit seems to be sucking me in, but the rope holds me in place, still on the surface. I reluctantly squeeze the brake lever and jerk backwards as the rope suddenly pays through the device. I take a few seconds to compose myself and start descending.

Honestly, the first step is the hardest. After I successfully got over the edge, my weight holds me to the steep slope and all downward movement is controlled by how hard I squeeze the brake in my hand. Before long, I'm almost enjoying myself as I carefully descend.

Lizbeth is keeping pace with me, keeping her eyes trained to the metal sheets of junk we pass down. Hisashi is farther below, and everyone else is a lot farther down. About an hour of carefully descending, I risk a glance around to see that we're making even better progress than Hisashi had thought, and we're about halfway done. Lizbeth stops moving and I stop next to her.

"Klein?"

"What's up?"

"When we get down there, I need to ask you something important." She tears her eyes off the wall in front of her for a brief moment to look into my eyes, then returns to her normal posture. I give a mental shrug and grip the brake handle.

Instead of descending a few feet and then engaging the brake again, this time my fall is arrested by my belt catching on something. I get my foot up under me and push off an outcropping to slide myself away from whatever I'm hooked on. As I push, I hear an ominous click.

A fraction of a second later, an explosion sends me flying. The ground spins all around, making me unable to find my bearings. I can barely tell which direction is up from brief glances at the sky.

Then the ground gets really, really close and I lose consciousness.

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

"Error: Command not recognized."

The canned female voice repeats what she had said about twenty or thirty times by now. I scowl and wait a few more seconds until Yui's illusionary form gives me the signal to send the command again. I quickly tap the keyboard's enter key to send the command yet again.

"Error: Command not recognized."

I grit my teeth and resist the urge to punch the twisted metal beside me. It would only hurt me and make my concentration waver even more than it had been.

For the past hour, I had been working on the helicopter that the enemies had shown up on. It wasn't damaged at all, and Yui assured me it was in top form, not even a single health point missing. I was working on it in a different sense.

You see, only those with ownership of vehicles can use them. If you belong to a faction you can be added as a co-owner of a vehicle, which is what the Air Force does for its pilots. This particular vehicle is owned by a group calling themselves "The Bloody Stripes" which pretty much tells me all I need to know about the paint scheme of their uniforms and the patter on the side of the helicopter I'm attempting to hijack.

Yui had told me about hacking back when I was escaping from the rest of the Special Operations troops. I hadn't really grasped what she meant at the time.

Apparently, hacking is writing some text in a very specific format, sending it a thousand times per second and trying to get the computer to accidentally let what I wrote into the system. Yui is acting as a timer for when the server has an activity spike that could possibly allow my code to trick the server into believing that, in fact, I _do_ own the chopper in front of me and can use it.

"Yui, this isn't working. I think we should just head out on foot."

She shakes her head. "It is only a matter of timing now. The code I had you create should work just fine. If your timing was a bit better-"

"I don't think I have the reflexes needed for this." I cut in. "How long is the period I have to press this?"

"You have approximately one thousandth of a second to slip your code in." She responds.

"Yeah, I'd do a better job just pressing the send key over and over until it works." I start tapping the enter key as fast as I can.

"Of course you can try that, but you increase the chances of the system detecting you significantly, and it is unlikely to work-"

The helicopter's red indicator turns green to indicate a friendly vehicle. I let out a whoop of elation at my efforts finally succeeding after who-knows-how-many tries.

"Or that could happen." Yui shakes her head. "Let's get on. We need to catch up to Klein and the rest if we want to see what they're up to."

I nod and get into the pilot's seat. There's a lot of controls, but Yui helpfully indicates which one to press and when. Soon, the metal contraption is in the air and aimed at the entrance to the pit that the others were heading for.

"How did you like your first attempt at hacking?" Yui breaks the silence after a few minutes.

"It's not what I expected. I thought it would be more pressing random buttons quickly and less preparation and boring error messages."

"That's what hacking is. For now, you only tried to insert a small section of code which determines the owner of a vehicle. It's only one variable value to set. More complicated things will require you to obtain special administrator rights to change their values, require even more specific timing, and possibly need to be changed very quickly to avoid the server detecting us."

"About that, you didn't want me to press the button too many times for some reason."

"That is because this server is very close to the Cardinal server that Aincrad ran on. The Cardinal system has an anti-cheat system that tracks failed commands and tries to determine which ones are harmful to the overall integrity of the system. A low level one like ownership of a vehicle is exceedingly small priority. This is why you were able to get away with spamming the command. A more secure system function, like 'Log Out' will be guarded with much better security."

I grimace. "I guess that means I need more practice."

The little apparition nods to me. "Upon analysis of your reaction time, we may encounter significant problems with the more precise time frames. This server has massive amounts or processing power synced through a series of CPUs. Each CPU operates at a certain speed, and if too many commands are sent per a unit of time then the server is prove to make a mistake. The CPU dedicated to the surface is usually close to max utilization at any given time due to the sheer amount of people and objects on the surface. That is why you had such a large window to enter in the code."

I give the girl a look. "I had one thousandth of a second."

"Yes, but the CPU clock is running at forty tera-hertz per second. That's forty trillion calculations per second. Your code is designed to cause the server to try to do so many calculations that it has to try to do two calculations at once, confusing it into accept you as the owner of this vehicle. We had to wait for enough people on the surface to be doing anything to cause the CPU to experience a lot of traffic to let our code tax it past its limits."

"Um… Can you repeat that?" I ask sheepishly.

"It's like handing you thirty weapons one after the other and asking you to get them to the correct owners but not giving you time to memorize who has what. There's a chance you'll get all of them to their correct owners, but it's far more probable that you'll mess up at least one." Yui elaborates.

I blink a few times. "Okay. So, I need to get faster?"

Yui shakes her head. "We need a way to alter your perception of time so that you can be more precise with entering the code."

"I really wish you were able to do this." I grumble.

"Yes, but unfortunately, I have only limited access to this server. I have been actively trying for a loophole to allow myself more access into the better protected systems. There are some I can't even access because they are unique to a user." She points at my chest. "That's why you have to do this yourself."

I shake my head. "Let's talk about something else. Hacking seems like a massive headache." I gently move the control yoke in my hand and alter our course to be directly towards the pit.

"There seems to be a major problem that has the five branches up in arms."

I raise an eyebrow.

"This vehicle has a decoder set to the frequencies that the Navy uses to contact the Air Force. A video has recently been broadcast over the link. While the equipment inside this vehicle is unsuited to display video properly, I can save it and replay it to you at a later date. The audio is much easier to decrypt. According to the Navy, a large threat appeared out of nowhere and has most of the higher-up nervous as they can be."

I continue to watch the ever changing scenery in front of me, gently moving the stick to counter motion induced by the wind blowing across our path. "So, we're heading into a situation that the major powers feel nervous about." After a moment's more thought, "And for some reason, they're sending Klein, Lizbeth, and Silica to deal with the situation."

"That is an unusual occurrence, since all indications point towards them all joining different factions. A joint venture is always unusual on this server."

"And why is that?"

"Two reasons: The first is a simple product of human psychology. An experiment called the Robber's Cave experiment was performed to test some theories about group behavior. The end conclusion is that all you have to do to pit two groups against each other is give each one a different colored flag."

Oh yeah, Yui was supposed to keep people feeling happy beck in Aincrad. She probably has a whole library of human psychology experiments in her head. Still, that's a bit messed up.

"The second reason is that five leaders in this simulation have agreed to minimize their chances of accidentally allowing someone to clear the game."

"And how does that have anything to do with working together?"

"There's a rumor that the only way to clear Gunstorm is to get one member of each of the military factions to work together. They would have to 'accidentally' climb the central spire itself to do that however."

I shake my head. "That's really, really stupid."

"If you view it from their point of view, they just took a major risk in that direction. They not only green-lit a group consisting of members from four out of the five factions, but there was a high likelihood of you attempting to climb the tower and end the simulation yourself. If they we're tasked with following you up the tower, then all you'd need to do, assuming that they're right about the "One member of each military branch" is find a member of the Army."

"Ah." I lapse into silence as I ponder Yui's words.

We spend the rest of the few hours of flight in silence.

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

The first thing I feel after the crash landing is pain. I crack my eyes open to find Lizbeth sitting down in a chair, asleep, next to where I am lain out on the floor. I move my arm slightly to test my limbs. It's completely fine, if a little stiff. I slowly shift around, attempting to get some more feeling into my body before attempting to stand up.

I pull the rough trail blanket off of me and stand up carefully. After a moment of stillness to make sure that she's still asleep, I slip out of the large metal room I had been inside and look around. The faces of the rest of the party turn towards me. We appear to be inside a large ship of some sort, and Chris is poking at a fire someone had started to get some light into the area.

Silica's face brightens up. "Klein! You're okay!"

I give her a smile as she leaps up from her seat and throws herself at me to give me a hug. The little robot that serves as Pina- or Pina's replacement, not exactly sure- buzzes around my head beep in cute little tones. The two Spec Ops guys glance my way, smirk at Silica, and look away. Chris and Henrietta seem completely uninterested.

"Where are we?" I ask the room.

"Right at the bottom of the pit." Chris remarks coldly. "You know, the one you fell down?"

"Oy, I didn't ask to be blown up."

He glances in my direction. "I did try to warn you, but important leader dude had to go and ignore my warning."

I blink a few times. I guess I did brush him off. "Uh... sorry?"

He rolls his eyes and grabs some gadget lying next to him and starts to tinker with it.

Silica grabs my attention again. "Are you okay?"

"Of course." I pull up my menu and check the validity of that statement. "Yup, up to full power."

"Good! We've all already slept, and we're just waiting for you to get wake up before heading out."

"Oh." I look back to the room I had come from. "Should I wake up Lizbeth then?"

"She's still sleeping? She must have been really tired."

I shrug and gently pry the small girl off of me. "I'll go get her. You guys pack up and I'll be right out."

I find her in the same position I had left her. She's still asleep in her chair. I gently poke her in the shoulder, but she doesn't wake up. I grab her shoulder and shake it. She stirs and slowly opens her eyes.

"Uhhhhh... Klein?" She blinks. "Klein!" She springs out of her chair and wraps her arms around me. "I thought you were dead!"

After a moment of leaving my arms out to the sides I figure she's forgive me this once and return the embrace. "Yeah, I could've died, but I didn't. And if I did, I still have four more lives."

She nods and bumps my chest with her head. "Still." We stand like that for a few seconds before she releases me. "Okay, we need to get going. Kuradeel's deadline isn't waiting for us to recover."

She releases her hold on me almost reluctantly, then we head back through the door. The fire has been put out and everyone else is toting their weapons.

Peyton glances at me. "Ready?"

"Yeah." I quickly pull my assault rifle from my inventory. "Let's get going."

We trudge out to deck of the ship. Looking up, the hole we had descended through is right above. The sky is dark, so I've been out for at least five hours.

Henrietta speaks up from right behind me, startling me. "There are some difficult enemies down here. Keep your guard up."

I have to fight to keep a nervous laugh inside my throat. I may not have known Henrietta until this mission, but I knew of her reputation immediately after entering the Navy branch. For her to say the monsters here are dangerous, that means they're really out there. And we're still only about a seventh of the way down.

Ironically, after that statement of Henrietta's, we encounter very little in the way of monsters. Supposedly, all of these creatures are products of all the chemicals leaking from the wreckage that makes up this planet, dubbing them mutants. The one we did cross paths with were so small that we didn't even have to fire a single round. All but one skittered away at our approach, and the one foolish or desperate enough to attack us was quickly dispatched by Hisashi's machete.

It takes two hours of climbing steadily downwards through the fuselages of broken machines until we decide to take a break.

Well, less of a group decision and more Silica flopping down on the floor face first and refusing to get up until her legs stopped feeling like rubber. We all pull out some trail rations and work on those while we sit and take a breather.

"Where are we going next?" I ask Lizbeth.

She opens her menu and makes the map visible to both of us. "We're heading through that train next." She points towards the tail end of what apparently is a mostly intact train. "After we get to the front of the train, we get off and follow the only path through until we get to a large cargo plane. We're planning on resting there for the night. Tomorrow, we need to start heading down this path." She considers the three dimensional image floating in front of her. "It looks like there's a lot of side passages. We need to be careful not to get lost in there."

"To be honest, it doesn't look like it's going to take a whole week to get down there."

"That's because we're still used to Aincrad, I think. In there, we could walk around in straight lines and there were paths almost to every location. Here, everything is a twisted mess of metal that really shouldn't be able to hold itself up properly. We can't move as quickly either. Think of it like the dungeon on the twenty eighth floor where the dungeon floor was all twisty and covered in vines."

"Ah." I stare at the map for a few more seconds. "I guess that makes sense. But we've been making good time, right?"

"Well... We're actually a little behind after you tripped that explosive. We weren't planning on resting that early."

"Yikes. Sorry about that."

She closes the map and stretches her arms above her head. "Our cue to keep going, wouldn't you think?" She asks me with a wink before turning to the rest of the group. "Let's keep going. We need to catch up if we don't want to all be killed in a giant explosion."

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

"You want me to what?" I ask Yui.

"Jump out."

I peek out of the side of the helicopter into the pit below me. It's a really far fall. And it's dark, so I can't see much.

"How about no."

"It's the fastest way. You have a parachute now, and you are very skilled physically. There is a very small chance of injury or death."

"Within the first day of being on this server, I was captured by my supposed allies, met Silica, and was shot out of the side of a helicopter. I'd rather not recreate the experience."

Yui shrugs her virtual shoulders. "You can always land the helicopter next to that one." She points toward the Air Force helicopter I assume is the one that transported Klein and the rest here. "Of course, climbing down will take you more time and make it more likely that they get to whatever's at the end of this route down first."

"It's dark out. You want me to jump into a pit in the dark."

"Yes."

I groan. "I really hate myself sometimes." One more deep breath and I take a step outside of the Hovering vehicle.

Air rushes past my ears and my stomach threatens to come out my throat.

"Kirito, focus. You need to spread out so the air slows you down."

I position myself spread-eagle and watch as the sides of the pit suddenly rush past me. I lean my weight to the left to center myself more, since the conic nature of this pit means the walls are always getting closer.

"Grab the ripcord." Yui prompts. "You'll be pulling it in five seconds."

I reach back, but I can't seem to find where the little handle is.

"Four"

The cord holding the parachute strapped to my back bashes against my arm, letting me know where it is. Now I just need to grab it.

"Three"

I manage to get a hold of the cord, but not the handle. I'm not going to have enough leverage or grip to pull the cord out like this.

"Two"

I jerk my hand up the cord and find the handle. My hand clasps around the metal bar just in time.

"Pull"

I yank the cord with all my might. For a split second, my stomach sinks as nothing seems to happen. Then my world flips as the chute catches on the air and attempt to pull me to a stop.

The harness squeezes my ribs hard enough that it become hard to breathe. The panic slowly fades as I slowly wind my way down, constantly turning around in ever smaller circles as the walls close in.

Then one of the cords holding me to the sheet of nylon over my head is severed by a large protrusion with a sharp edge.

I quickly lose control of my direction and slam into the side of the pit, in particular an ugly truck thing. Then I bounce off and the nylon fabric gets tangled around me as I tumble down into the pit.

I land pretty hard and get the wind knocked out of me.

After A few minutes to recover, I pull the fabric off my face and sit up.

"Yui?"

"Yes?"

"I am never jumping out of anything ever again."

"I agree. You seem to have poor luck with that."

I open my inventory and draw out a knife. Slowly, I free myself a bit at a time, slicing through the ropes and nylon to free limbs. One of the cords had managed to wrap around my throat, but I hadn't even noticed in the confusion. I'm just thankful it didn't get pulled tight.

Once free, I check how my health is doing. I'm about half down, which equates to twenty three points. I slap a bandage on the biggest gash I have and that gives me an extra ten to work with. "Can you tell how far ahead the others are?"

"If they encountered no resistance and have not stopped yet, they would be approximately here on their route." A map appears in front of my eyes with a little red dot pulsing along the route down. "If they have taken a full eight hour rest as is standard military practice, they'll be around here." A second dot appears closer to the surface. "They are likely to rest either here or here because these positions are easily defensible."

I squint at the map. "Is that a huge plane?"

"Yes. It's a cargo plane that has both a large amount of hollow space and is still powered by a late model nuclear engine. The front and back can both close, allowing for an easily defensible place to rest."

"So they're somewhere between..."

"If they haven't taken a rest, they are ten hours ahead of you. If they have, it will be closer to two hours."

"Alright." I draw out my sniper rifle and make sure it's loaded. "Let's make some of that time up."

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

A quote I had read when I was growing up in Aincrad is "Things can always get worse." I don't remember who said it, or where I read it.

I do know that if someone says "We can just head out this side door and we'll be at the plane in no time at all." They are asking to be gruesomely murdered by someone or something.

In our case, "something" turns out to be a twenty foot tall, glowing green thing with giant teeth protruding out of its mouth. According to Peyton, it's an elephant. From the elephants in Aincrad, I assumed they didn't have claws on their feet, spikes lining their backs, and four eyes on each side of their head.

All I know for sure is that two of our weapons are of any use against it, and neither of those are mine. It has a hide so thick that my assault rifle bullets just bounce off of it. Pistols of all types are beyond useless. This means the three from Special Operations and I are all running around the room, attempting to distract it from the two who can do damage. The Spec Ops people are one up on me since they have their invisibility suits that they can activate intermittently

Lizbeth holds her grenade launcher up to her eye again and fires a round which arcs through the air and detonates right in the creature's face. Henrietta reloads her rifle, which is the only non-explosive that seems to do anything.

Chris is lying on the floor, having been smashed into the wall by a sideways swipe of one of the tusks.

"Klein! Move right!" Henrietta yells.

I sprint in the indicated direction and the monster turns its enormous head to follow my movements just in time for a 7.62 caliber round to smash into one of its left eyes. It bellows in pain and rears up on its two hind legs for a second before crashing down and rocking the cavern we're in.

Unlike most of the larger spaces underground, this one isn't a large construct that had yet to collapse on itself like the place we're attempting to head for, this place is made of metal sheets like the surface. It's roughly circular, with two entrances. Both the exit doorway and the one we came in through are now blocked by a thick iron grate that had fallen into the door frame after we stepped into the room.

The shaking causes me to lose my footing, and Silica dashes past me, shooting at the creature's face. It turns to follow her, giving me a chance to stagger to my feet.

Lizbeth grimaces and pops open the giant drum which contains all of the spent explosives. She pulls out six more and starts sliding them into the chambers. "We don't have enough firepower to take this down!" She calls out.

"Then what are we going to do?" Yells Peyton. He fires a burst from his machine pistol and ducks as the monster raises a claw and grabs at him. Thankfully, it seems very clumsy with those claws or we'd all be dead by now.

An idea strikes me. I watch the elephant move and I pay careful attention to its attack pattern. First it charges whoever shot at it the most, then it does a swipe attack, then resets. If it gets damaged, it rears up and stomps, throwing off our aim and possibly stumbling us. If we get too close to it, it attempts to grab us with its feet claws. I take a deep breath. "I have a really, really bad plan."

"Anything's better than no plan!" Hisashi says, pulling the trigger and spraying metal at the glowing thing.

"All of you, stay as close to the walls as possible, and stop shooting it."

"Are you crazy?" Comes from a few directions.

"I need its attention on me!"

The creature swipes with its massive tusks at Peyton. He doesn't quite dodge and gets thrown about twenty feet, but is able to regain his feet.

I fire a burst of gunfire at the elephant's face. Its three remaining right eyes all lock onto me and it starts to lumber around to charge at me, the next attack in its pattern. Another burst of gunfire ensures it will go after me and then I run off to the side at full tilt. The massive beast continues to turn to track me, ignoring the others plastering themselves to the wall. Once I reach my destination, I stop and wait for the elephant to charge.

It's risky but if I can pull it off-

The monster bellows again and lowers its head to charge.

I take a deep breath and run two steps towards it and drop down to slide. The creature's tusk whip overhead, followed by the rest of the mass of glowing flesh. I quickly get up to my feet as a loud _CLANG_ of metal on metal as the elephant rams into the gate I had aligned myself to.

It backs away from the wall and turns to the nearest person, who happens to be Henrietta. It swipes with its tusks once again. The sniper attempts to block the potentially fatal blow with her gun, but all that accomplishes is having her signature weapon ripped from her grasp and flung to the other side of the room.

I run up and empty the rest of my magazine at the creature's head, barely distracting it from goring Henrietta in time.

Once again, it focuses on me. I keep my eyes trained on the mutant while I call out. "Is the gate broken?"

"Yes!" Silica calls. "Let's get out of here!"

She and Peyton quickly get out of the room, but this causes a complication. Apparently, the creature doesn't like it when it's prey attempts to leave. It ignores the rest of us and rams the door frame again, blocking Silica and Peyton from sight. Then it turns around and trumpets with its nose before stomping the ground repeatedly.

"What's it doing?" Lizbeth cries. "I can't aim like this!"

"It's making sure we can't get out!" Hisashi yells back. "Klein, any better ideas?"

I stumble over the still shaking floor to Lizbeth. "Hand me your launcher!"

Her eyes bug out. "Are you crazy?"

"I need it to distract the thing." I grab the grenade launcher and remove it from her slackened grip. Once she realizes that I had it, she tries to grab it back, but I'm already pointing the barrel roughly towards the elephant and pulling the trigger.

The combination of recoil and the unsteady footing knows me on my ass, but it accomplishes my objective. The elephant leaves its defensive position to charge me. Instead of wasting time getting to my feet, I roll sideways and barely avoid the claws as it races past me to slam into the metal wall.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lizbeth and Hisashi dragging Chris' unconscious (I hope) form out the door. That's good, now everyone is out-

Wait, why is Henrietta going that way?

With a bolt of horror, I realize what she's doing. She's heading for her sniper rifle.

The mutant turns and, in finding more of its prey escaping, bellows once more and charges at Henrietta.

Still lying down, I aim the heavy explosive launcher and pull the trigger four more times. Three shots arc out and hit the creature, completely obscuring it in smoke. The fourth chamber is empty.

It charges out of the smoke blindly, or maybe it was heading back for the door, seeing as it ended up in that direction. Henrietta grabs up her sniper rifle and turns to find the massive glowing form blocking her way.

She pulls her rifle to her eye and pulls the trigger.

No roar comes from the barrel, but only a resounding _click_.

The beast lowers its head to charge at her as she frantically attempts to reload. I get to my feet and start to run.

The elephant gives out one more roar and starts to run at the still reloading woman.

She looks up at it as it bears down, now plainly obvious she can't stop it in time to save herself. Which is when two hands push her out of the way.

As I sail through the air from the impact, I briefly reflect on how much nicer escaping while the mutant was distracted by our blood-crazy sniper would have been, but I laugh internally as I realize I would never do that to a friend. I don't think I'd be able.

Then my back hits the wall and pain fills my vision with stars.

I blink a few times until enough of the visual static goes away for me to see the situation. Henrietta is out the door, meaning that the elephant has exactly one target left.

It approaches me and grabs me with one of its massive claws, then lifts me up to its eye level, all five remaining eyes glaring with intense hatred. It opens its mouth, lined with three rows of very, very pointy teeth and moves me to put my head in its mouth.

**_BANG_**

The loudest gunshot I've ever heard resounds inside the chamber. The creature's head now has a hole right through its forehead. Green blood leaks out and its grip slackens, allowing me to slip out of its grip.

On top of the now dead mutant, Kirito works the bolt lever on his massive rifle. His eyes are covered by goggles, but I get a shiver from the glare he certainly has under his mask. Then he turns away without a word and activates his cloak, fading into nothing.


	23. Chapter 23: Mending the Torn

Welcome to the latest chapter. I hope you'll find it amusing.

Somehow, I have almost 200 reviews. Not sure why people still read this, but I'm grateful to everyone who's decided to spend their time reading what I have written, and especially grateful to those of you who've spent time to write reviews. I know that it takes a good bit of time.

This story is almost one hundred percent planned out now, with just a few minor details I need to make up as I go along. I can't say when the next chapter will be, but it'll hopefully be done before the January semester gets into full gear.

I've waffled long enough. Have at thee!

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

Yui was the one that pushed me to continue on as fast as I could. I hurried down the stacks of metal machines without stopping to check if there are supplies to grab. I ignored small enemies curiously gathering in the shadows at the creature making all the noise. I even forsook applying the proper splint when I slipped and smashed my arm hard enough that I broke it.

As a result, I was storming through a train that provided a tunnel only to find it clogged up by two people. I recognize both of them. Silica and the guy with the ghost obsession. Neither of them are looking at me, but looking through a side door of the train. A second later, something massive collides with the doorframe. A glowing appendage whips around from the impact and withdraws.

I press a button on my suit and activate the stealth mode. Silica and ghost boy were knocked over by the impact, so it's an easy feat to pass by them and slip into the chamber.

Inside, there is a monstrous, twenty foot high elephant that for whatever reason has glowing green skin and claws on its feet. Right as I get in, the beast starts to stomp on the ground, stumbling me. Instead of trying to recover to my feet, I scramble around on all fours to get around the big thing.

"What's it doing?" Lizbeth cries. "I can't aim like this!"

"It's making sure we can't get out!" Hisashi yells back. "Klein, any better ideas?"

Klein turns to Lizbeth. "Hand me your launcher!"

Her eyes bug out. "Are you crazy?"

"I need it to distract the thing."

Klein and Lizbeth seem to fight over the launcher for a second before Klein aims it upwards and pulls the trigger. A grenade launches up and hits the massive creature on its side. It leaves its position by the door to charge at Klein.

I open my menu without looking at it and draw out the heavy sniper rifle Yui called an "Anti-Material Rifle" and try to aim at the creature.

"Kirito, what are you doing?" Yui whispers in my ear.

"I'm killing that before it kills Klein."

"You realize he's trying to kill you?"

I pause, weapon still aimed at the floor.

The elephant notices the blond woman, who had for some reason left the safety of the door to go for a weapon lying on the ground. Klein fires a few more grenades and creates a massive cloud that obscures my vision. I stand next to the wall, waiting for the smoke to clear. Before it does, Klein comes sailing out of the haze and slams into the wall beside me.

The glowing creature follows through the smoke and grabs Klein in its trunk.

All thoughts of possible consequences leave my head and I sprint into action. With A running leap, I land on the large glowing hide and run straight up its spine until I am less than a foot from its head. I smash the barrel into the flesh of the ugly mutant and pull the trigger.

**_BANG_**

"Warning, cloaking system has failed." A text box appears in the center of my vision before fading out. Sure enough, the barrel of my gun becomes visible, and the invisibility effect creeps backwards revealing more and more of me every second.

The beast I'm standing on collapses to the ground and drops Klein, who looks up at me, stunned.

Oh, right, these people are trying to kill me. I quickly draw back the bolt action lever and cycle a new round into the chamber.

After a second or two of silence, and nobody firing on me, I see a message appear. "Cloak back online."

I tap the button on my arm and fade away.

I run down the elephant and run towards the door only to find four faces blocking the way. I take two steps back and move around to plaster myself on the wall.

The blond woman from before, the sniper, has drawn some sort of pistol and pushes through the others into the chamber. "Where is he?"

I remain still, hoping the slow drain of the battery is slow enough that I'll have some time to sneak out. Meanwhile, Klein stands up.

"Henrietta-"

"Where is he? WHERE IS HE?" Henrietta screams.

Klein walks over and grabs her gun from the side. "Calm down-"

The pistol goes off, the round hitting the far wall. For the next few seconds, the only sound is the sound of the spent casing bouncing along the ground.

"Henrietta." Klein says in a commanding voice.

I've never heard him use that voice before. It's very unlike his normally laid back attitude, but I must admit that it works. No wonder he ran a guild back in Aincrad.

"Calm down _now_."

"But our target is here! We can take him out-"

"No."

"Why not?"

Lizbeth, Peyton and Silica all continue to watch with looks of concern. I edge back towards the door, stopping a foot away from the edge of the frame.

"He just saved my life." Klein almost growls. "Something he wouldn't have needed to do if you had headed for the door instead of heading for that gun."

"I needed that gun. How else was I going to kill it?" She points to the rapidly dissipating monster.

"You needed to _escape._" Klein admonishes her. "We were clearly outmatched. There's a reason that we have the word 'retreat'."

"I had it." Henrietta stubbornly says, looking away from Klein. "If my gun hadn't been out of bullets..."

"There's no guarantee you would have been able to take it down all by yourself. I highly doubt you would have survived the attempt." Klein grabs her arm, forcing her to look straight into his face. "You. Would. Not. Have. Survived."

She stares back for a few seconds before ripping her arm away from his and turning back to the train car without a word.

Klein drops his head into his hands for a few seconds, and then looks up at the four still looking in through the door. "We really need to get a move on." He turns to face the exit across the room. "I can't believe I got the wrong door after all that."

"What about Kirito?" Lizbeth asks.

"What about him?" Klein echoes back.

"Shouldn't we do, I don't know, _something _about him?"

Klein's shoulders slump. "And what do you want to do? I don't..." He looks down at his hands. "I'm not cut out for this."

"You are." Hisashi says with confidence. "If what Silica says about you is true, you are probably the best man for the job." He turns back and leaves line of sight of all of us.

Silica peels herself from the doorway and heads after her new parental figure. Lizbeth move towards Klein and puts her hands on his shoulders.

I take that as my cue to leave, but Peyton is still blocking the doorway, fiddling with a metal tube in his hand. "Ah, I hate to break up a tender moment, but we really need to deal with the whole Kirito thing immediately." The metal tube in his hand is flipped into the air and caught without so much as a glance. It's a flashlight of some sort. A chill goes down my spine as I see that despite the relaxed posture, his eyes are sharp, not darting around but staring fixedly at the two inside the room.

Klein sighs. "Why is that?"

"Because." He straightens up and holds out the flashlight. "I've been blocking this door since Kirito became invisible. There's no exit aside from this one, so he's still here."

All of a sudden, I recall where I had seen that particular style of flashlight before.

Peyton clicks a button on top of the device and a purple beam comes out. He sweeps it around the room before I can do anything about it.

Once again, I lose cloaking.

Klein and Lizbeth turn to me. They stare at me. I stare back, my grip on my rifle getting tighter with each second.

Peyton yawns theatrically and tosses the flashlight to Lizbeth. "I'm gonna go bug Henrietta. See you in five minutes." And he saunters off.

An awkward silence descends.

"...Kirito?" Klein asks.

"Yeah?"

"Why'd you save me?"

I shrug. "Wasn't exactly my brightest move, I'll admit."

"Thanks, though. I owe you one." He takes a deep breather. "So, what now?"

I twitch the M95 away from them towards the door. "I leave. Either past your teammates, or through them."

Lizbeth turns off the flashlight. Once the beam leaves my form for a few seconds, it starts recharging. "Why are you following us?"

I glare at her while stepping sideways towards the door. "It important enough to get everybody all panicked. Might as well head down myself and get whatever it is. It'll give me a bargaining chip."

Klein heaves a final sigh and seems to settle down a bit. "That's not going to help you any. If you get it, all that will happen is that we'll switch targets to you."

"I'm already a target, or else your sniper friend needs new glasses."

"We've been taken off that mission until we resolve this current problem." He opens his menu and pokes invisible menu buttons until an incoming mail icon appears. I press it and find it contains a video file. "It's all inside there. The brief rundown is that Kuradeel is holding all of Gunstorm hostage with super-powerful weapon. Lizbeth, Silica and I all were called in since we know Kuradeel. Same reason we were sent after you."

I consider the video, but close the message before pressing the play button. "Why is Kuradeel trying to kill everyone?"

Lizbeth is the one who responds. "We don't know. He's gone kind of bomb crazy since we got on this server. He seems to found the biggest bomb he could and decided he could use it to grab power." She grimaces. "We're the task force sent to stop him before his deadline."

I look back and forth between the two of them. Both appear to be telling the truth. "Okay, fine. Then I'll just head back up to the surface and continue what I was doing."

"Are you going to take away everyone's lives again?" Klein asks quietly.

I debate on my words for a second. "No, I'm looking into alternatives. I'm not welcome on this server. Just here until my body gets fixed."

Lizbeth still looks doubtful. "And how do you plan to do that?"

I pull the goggles off my head and toss them to her. She catches them and slides them over her eyes. A look of shock flits across her face before she turns and starts to talk with Yui.

Klein takes a few cautions steps forward. "Well..." He trails off. "I'm not sure I could pull the trigger on you. I know I was assigned this mission, but... it's not something I can do." He gives me a lopsided half smile. "I'm a really shitty friend, huh? Trying to hunt you down on orders."

I shift in place uncomfortably. "Well, I understand you were all really mad at me after I brought down Aincrad. I've... learned a few things since coming here." I sigh and rest the butt of the gun on the ground. "It seems I've made quite a few poor decisions, including the one not to tell you my true identity."

His half smile spread to the other half of his face. "I can't speak for the others, but I'd at least like to be on good terms with you again." He holds out his hand. "Can we do that?"

I smirk. "Hey, if I wanted you dead, all I had to do was watch." I grab his hand and shake it.

Lizbeth comes back with my goggles in her hands. To Klein, "He's telling the truth. Yui's going to teach him to mess with the server and hopefully only let himself out. It sounds a bit risky, but..." She gestures vaguely at me.

"I'm glad I got some perspective." Klein says to me. "Maybe I'll see you around."

"Or," Comes a voice from the doorway.

Hisashi strides in. "Why don't you come with us?"

I can't help but laugh. "I'm not sure I'd survive the trip."

"If we don't make it, every single one of us is dead anyway. I for one would be happy to get additional help."

"Yes, but I'd rather not get stabbed in my sleep. Silica is very good with daggers, and your sniper seemed to be out for blood."

He nods amiably. "We'll have to introduce the idea to them carefully."

"I'd rather not take that chance. If you'll excuse me-"

"How long will it take you to do whatever it is you're planning?" He asks.

I pause and put the goggles back on to ask Yui.

"About a month." I notice Lizbeth nod in confirmation out of the corner of my eye.

"If we don't stop Kuradeel, Everyone will dead in six days." He gestures to the empty spot where I had shot the mutant. "We had trouble with something one the first day. What do you think our chances are of getting all the way down?"

"Klein's capable. You said so yourself."

"He is. Unfortunately, He's also relatively inexperienced with this server. Over half of his team consists of people who under any other circumstances would outrank him or completely ignore orders. Henrietta has a terrible tendency to ignore orders from her superiors. Silica is still young. We may have a lot of talent represented here, but we're not a group."

"...What's your point?"

"If he loses his already tenuous grip in his role as leader, everyone here dies."

I consider this for a second. "I... I'm not gonna do the whole 'save people' thing again. I understand what you're saying, but I'm sure you can handle it." I slide the goggles down over my eyes and take a step towards the door.

"Kirito, you need to watch the video." Yui whispers to me.

I hold up my finger to signal everyone to wait, then open the message and play the video. Sure enough, there's Kuradeel. He's talking about some kind of bomb.

Wait a second. In the background. Orange hair.

"Is... Asuna with Kuradeel?"

Klein shuffles his feet. "Well, possibly. We don't know if it's her or someone else who looks like her."

I push the goggles up onto my forehead. "Asuna got captured by Kuradeel." The disbelief is blatantly obvious in my tone of voice.

"Yeah, they we're going on their own private expedition to get some rare gear." Lizbeth says nervously.

I rub my temples, but it doesn't seem to be helping to alleviate the pressure any.

"Fine. I'll go down there with you. But if anyone tries to kill me, don't expect me to show mercy."

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

After he decided to go with us, Kirito said he had something he needed to do. He departed swiftly, fully cloaked. Lizbeth didn't even twitch the flashlight in her hand.

I turn to Hisashi. "How's Christopher?"

"Alive. He was severely wounded, but he'll be fine after a good night's rest."

"Henrietta?"

"Pouting three cars down. You need to talk to her when you have the chance. Before you ask, Silica is asleep, a Peyton is standing guard."

"That's good. Thanks for the vote of confidence back there." I gesture vaguely to the room. "And, try not to make me sound so pathetic next time, okay?"

"I only stated what was needed to sway him to our side. That's not to say it isn't true, at least to a certain degree. You need to keep a firm grasp on this team if you want it to stay a team."

I nod. "That's kinda obvious. I just need to figure out a way to keep a hold on our more enthusiastic members. With Silica... Well, you've been helpful, and she seems to look up to you. If you'd help me on that front it'd be much appreciated. As for Henrietta, I'm not sure if anything less than a bullet to the forehead would stop her."

"It may come to that." Hisashi leans against the chamber wall.

"We can't just kill her."

"Why not? She's a proven liability. The Navy is still represented in this cooperative effort by you, and our newest addition covers the whole sniping aspect of things."

I eye the man. He's been nothing but helpful up to this point, but his current line of thinking is rubbing me the wrong way. "The Navy is going to make my life a living hell if I kill her."

"They will anyway. You did say you were planning on leaving after this mission, right?" Hisashi's eyes close until they're half-lidded.

"That... Look, I don't feel comfortable _murdering_ people I'm supposed to be watching over."

"Fine then. I'll do it." After an interminable second of harsh glares from both sides, he continues. "I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Meanwhile, while she's still running around doing whatever she likes, there's a significant chance of her messing it up for everyone on this server."

"No, Hisashi. She's not going to be killed by us, no matter how much easier our lives would be. I..." I throw my hands up into the air in frustration. "It's just wrong!"

Hisashi straightens up. "I hope you have a very good plan to get her used to the idea of Kirito heading out with us, otherwise your moral compass may have no bearing on her fate."

"Am I going to have to keep my eye on you as well?"

"No. That was just a good analysis of your friend's capabilities." He salutes lazily and turns to head into the train car.

I rub my eyes. These last few days have been so stressful. What's next on my list of problem? I guess it's time to talk to Henrietta.

I find her sitting down in a train car filled with dining tables. It's level enough in this car that the tables can be used without problem. On the table she's sitting at is most of if not all of her gear. Several cases of 7.62 are stacked against the window of the train car, two identical rifles, various other ammo types and weapons I had never seen her use, a tactical vest, an assortment of grenades, rations, a pair of night vision goggles, and some tactical gear like rope and hooks.

"Henrietta." I call out.

She whirls around, loading a magazine of ammo into one of her pistols with one fluid motion and has it trained between my eyes and ready to fire before she finished turning around in her seat.

"We need to talk." I say. I stand as tall as I can, spread my shoulders, and generally try to make myself as commanding as I can.

She slowly lowers her gun and goes back to slowly putting items into her inventory. She seems to have some sort of order to it, but it's not one I can see.

Before I can find the words to start the conversation, she speaks up first. "I'm assuming you want to talk to me about my behavior or something along those lines?"

"Well... Yeah. "

"Save it. I can guarantee I've heard whatever version you were preparing at least four times." She turns her head so I can barely be seen in the corner of her eye. "If it was 'for the good of the company' I've heard it eight times."

I had actually prepared something close to that on the short trip over, but her attitude makes me consider a new tactic.

"You're probably going to be killed in the next few days." I deliver this line in as much of a monotone as I'm currently capable of.

For the first time since I've met her she seems to actually be paying attention. Her hands stop moving, two magazines for different guns still held loosely. "What do you mean?"

"Your attitude hasn't won you any friends, and some of the others think you're now a liability. I heard some plans to take you out just to insure you don't do to our mission what you've done to a few others."

"Who are they? I'll make sure they don't get a chance-" I grab her shoulder and force her back down in her seat.

"No, you won't. As much as I hate it, I'm kind of in agreement with them. You are a loose cannon. I can't trust you when the time comes, both the time in the slums and just now prove that to me."

She remains silent, but she opens her mouth as if she was about to say something a few times.

After a few moments, I continue. "I think you have two options. Cool your head now, act like any reasonable soldier would, or constantly be watching your back hoping that nobody here decides that you're too much of a burden."

"Y-you wouldn't dare." She's still glowering at me, but she has a hint of uncertainty in her eyes.

I give her a look. "Yeah, you know me too well. I wouldn't. However, the others would. Someone as observant as you has to know that I may be in charge, but nobody accepts my authority in the slightest. I can tell the others not to do anything to you, but that's not likely to stop them any more then it seems to stop you."

She turns her eyes back to her still full hands. "I-"

"I really don't care how you feel about this right now. You should probably apologize if you want to remain on this mission, or stock up on stimulants if you plan on continuing." I hesitate for a second, but then decide that I might as well spill all the beans. "By the way, I've recruited Kirito for this mission."

She jerks upwards, getting halfway to her feet with a gun in her hand before stopping in what I assume is a very uncomfortable position. "Why... did you... do that?" She grits out from between her teeth.

"He's a good fighter. He's proved himself capable, and I think he'd be a good addition to the team. After all, I may need a new sniper soon, depending on your actions."

Her jaw grinds together so hard I think I hear one of her teeth give out. With visible effort she slides back down into her seat. "He's our target."

"He's also one of my oldest friends, one of only two childhood friends I have on this server. He's dangerous enough that generals and leaders who've know he exists for all of one day are sending a joint venture after him. Back in Aincrad, he took down monsters that are supposed to take whole legions of fighters to take down by himself." I spread my arms out in helplessness. "He's already disappeared somewhere, and even if we had a beacon on him, I'm not sure we'd be able to take him out ourselves. He may be our target, but if he wanted us dead, he had plenty chance to do us in. I'm putting our original mission aside so we have a better chance at preventing _the world form blowing up."_

Her hands start moving again. I wait in silence as she loads the rest of her gear into her inventory. Once finished, she stands up wordlessly and heads towards the front of the train, where we're heading.

"Where are you headed?" I ask.

"I... need some time to think.

"Don't we both." I mutter under my breath. Now, what on earth do I say to Silica? But before that, a quick message to Kirito.

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

After being recruited into Klein's tiny army, I head towards the back of the train to find a good place to rest and puzzle out some thoughts. I find a small room that seems to be some sort of closet. It's a bit cramped for my tastes, just like most of this world, but it has an important feature.

A working lock.

I disengage my invisibility field and tear the goggles off my head before I have to listen to Yui say anything to me. I need to sort my own thoughts out first.

Why can't decisions ever be straightforward? I want to just know that I'm making a good choice from the get-go for once.

I lie down on a counter built along one of the walls and replay today's events in my head. Joining with Klein is probably not a bad idea, as long as Silica and Henrietta don't do me in.

Actually, if they do kill me it might even be a bit in my favor. If I get killed, I could be back on the surface and figuring out how to escape this game with an additional two weeks without being targeted by this group. On the other hand, if they kill me and then get stuck down further, there won't be a server left for me to escape from. Or something along those lines.

I guess I should have wondered where Asuna and Kuradeel were. I don't know how Kuradeel managed to take her out, but he's a lot creepier and better at hiding his emotions than I thought.

I play the video again and pause where Asuna can be seen behind the crazy look on his face. Honestly, it might not even be her. The video is way too grainy to make out anything more than two black spots where her eyes are, and a gag covering the bottom half of her jaw. Sure Orange isn't a color a lot of people chose for their hair, but it's not exactly uncommon. Really, the only reason it's probably her is that Kuradeel always seemed a bit fixated on her.

A message appears in my inventory with a small tone.

"Kirito, put on your damn goggles."

It's signed Seijirō.

I grab the goggles and slide them over my face. Instead of just Yui, A second face appears in front of my eyes.

"Hi?" I ask tentatively.

"Hi." Responds Yui. The other form just waves. I stare at it for a second, a vague recollection trying to place him.

"Wait, isn't that me?" I point to the other form.

"Not exactly." The stranger's body shifts to a new one I don't recognize. It has blue hair, is much taller than it was before, and has blue butterfly wings poking out the back. "You know me as X. I'm the one who lent you the spare body when you died in Aincrad."

"Ah."

"Yui has informed me of your current situation. I have to commend you for deciding to follow in my footsteps and learning the fine art of coding, though I'm sure Yui will be a much better teacher than I could ever be."

"Haven't learned too much yet. And I'm only doing it to get out of here. Also, you can code too?"

"Sure I can. How else would I have managed to save Yui here from the collapse of the Aincrad server, or stuffed your consciousness into my body so you weren't permanently dead?" He winces and mutters to the side, "Shouldn't have worded it that way."

"Good point."

"So, tell me how you've been getting along in Aincrad."

I recount the past two- well, maybe three days now to my savior. While saying it, I come to realize just how bizarre my life is.

Once I'm done recounting it to him, he smiles. "Sounds like things are getting interesting in there. Out here, it's almost like a war's about to start."

"Huh?"

"Yeah. You released a lot of people into this ship, and most of them aren't happy about it. Fortunately, enough have resigned themselves to their new reality that we've got enough people working on the crucial areas of our ship. Unfortunately, the more radical among them decided to storm the engineering area of the sector housing the Aincrad server and pods." He grimaces. "It's like the Drakesguard server collapse all over again."

"What is Drakesguard?"

"Ah, I told you that your Aincrad was the second server to shut down. The first was Drakesguard. That one was actually pretty nasty to live in, even compared with GunStorm. The inhabitants all lived in a giant castle that was constantly under siege from monsters. We managed to find an exploit to get them out without needing an inside man, but they weren't too happy about it. They holed themselves up in their section after killing everybody inside and barricaded themselves in. They were very good at keeping out people that want in, due to their server."

I notice an odd word in his speech. "Were?"

"Yes, unfortunately, they didn't realize how their real bodies worked. While all of the survivors of Aincrad had us to teach them that they needed to do things like eat, Drakesguard's lack of help meant that they all started to get sick. They had no concept of sanitation, no medical knowledge... By the time some of them got desperate enough to break the blockade, some people were resorting to cannibalism, instinct driving them to get nutrients."

"That's... really messed up."

"We had to seal the entire section and eject it. Nobody was willing to go in there to clean up and it was a serious health hazard. A few people managed to survive, those who escaped the blockade. Sometimes they'll tell stories of what went on in there..." He just starts to shake his head back and forth without saying anything.

"And this is like then?" I ask after a few seconds of grim silence.

"Well, not really. It just seems like there's a potential for bloodshed again. I'd rather not have a repeat, but since most of the Aincrad survivors were given a decent understanding of how their own biology works, so it's unlikely to end quite as gruesomely."

"Good." Like I needed another thing to heave onto my conscious.

"Anyway. It's been nice talking to you. I'm kind of in hiding right now, seeing as I was in the Aincrad sector when this all went down, so I might not be able to talk to you for long stretches of time. I'll leave a message with Yui when I can."

I nod. "Good luck."

"Thanks, you too."

His image fades from view.

"Kirito, you have a message from Klein."

I shift my attention over to Yui. "What does it say?"

"He wants to get moving. The message says the will be departing in five minutes."

I sit myself upright and stretch out my tired limbs. "Alright. Let's go."

I grab the rifle I had tucked into the corner and slide the strap over my shoulder, then put the silenced pistol in a hip holster.

I unlock the door and step out.

Outside my door, a very surprised Silica is standing, a little drone hovering over her shoulder.

We stare at one another for a good second before she screams.

She draws a big knife and swings it wildly at me.

I hastily activate my camouflage, but the train is too tight for me to evade properly. The knife carves a bright red line in my side that basically renders the camouflage system useless.

I don't really want to kill the girl from the dragon mountains. I had instinctively reached for my pistol, but that would do more than just stop her temporarily.

Instead, I clumsily dodge another swipe and draw a dagger out of my inventory.

I block the next swipe and our blades end up locked together. For a brief moment, my mind drifts back to Aincrad and my sword skills.

Funnily enough, Silica actually has the upper hand after a few more swings. She's always been a dagger and knife user, while I usually use longswords that weighed a ton. She's the first one to score a hit. One measly hit point.

"Silica, stop it!" I yell at her. "We're on the same team now!"

"No! You killed Pina!"

"I-" Her blade cuts through the air where my head had been half a second earlier. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I wasn't thinking when I took down the Aincrad server. I just did what I thought was right."

"It wasn't right! You... You killed my best friend!"

"I know it wasn't the right choice! I've had that repeatedly beaten into my head! I'd put everything back if I could, but I can't!"

A jab finally connects with the young girl, cutting a shallow wound into the insignia marking her as a member of the Special Operations branch.

"And then you come here to take him away again!"

"I made a mistake!" I shout, louder than I expected to.

She blinks, a little stunned by my sheer volume. She takes a step back to catch her breath.

"I needed to be put back into a stasis pod so my dumb body can handle existing on the outside. I was offered the option of entering this simulation while I recovered or staring at a vat wall for a month. I wasn't informed you all were in here until the day before I entered." I drop my guard slightly, trying to calm myself down. "I'm not gonna take him away again, alright? I'm looking for a way out that won't make everyone else exit with me."

She lowers her knife slightly. "You're a liar."

I take a deep breath. "Yes, I am. Why don't you ask Yui then?" I take the goggles off my head and toss them to her.

"She's a liar too."

Can't argue with you there. "We have a good plan. If it doesn't work... well, I'll probably get strung up and killed anyway."

Klein shows up in the doorway behind her. "Silica!"

She turns around. "Klein! Kirito's still here! He's-"

"He's joining us. We need every advantage we can get." He crosses his arms. "You need to stop attacking him now."

A look of betrayal crosses her face, and she dashes past Klein towards the front of the train.

"That could have gone better." He scratches his head. "We're all ready to go. Thanks for not killing her by the way."

"Huh? Oh, right. That was meant more for Henrietta." I scratch my arm. "Let's get going?"

"Yeah."

We pass through the train cars, picking up team members as we go. Peyton and Hisashi both give me smug looks as we pass them. The coast guard guy is up and glaring at everyone with complaints about a headache. Lizbeth is busy comforting a bawling Silica, but they stand up and join the procession headed forward. If looks could kill though...

We then pass a few empty cars before we find the last member of our party.

Henrietta stands in the doorway blocking the way to the next car. She has her rifle in hand and her eyes are glaring directly at me.

Klein sighs. "Henrietta, what are you doing?"

She doesn't respond. Instead she stalks right up to me and glares at me with even more hatred than the two girls behind me. "I don't like you."

"Gosh, really?" I put my hands to my face in mock surprise. "Never would'a guessed."

"I'll travel with you for now, but I'm going to fight you sooner or later and kill you."

"Many have tried." I say. "I'm still here."

"We'll see about that." She turns on her heel and heads down the corridor towards the front of the train.

Klein heaves another sigh. "This trip is going to be so _fun."_


	24. Chapter 24: Duel of Two Perspectives

This chapter is sponsored by the procrastination of homework, college, and the professors that make me frustrated.

I hope ya'll enjoy!

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

A few hours after Silica and I got into a knife fight, we come to the next stop on our descent to Kuradeel's position. A cluster of smashed road cars, forming a maze of twisted metal. There are lots of intertwining paths from one end to the other, which make it very easy to get separated and lost if one's not paying attention.

Instead of pressing forward, Klein calls a halt before we enter the maze. "According to the original scouting party, there's probably going to be some Hell Leeches. We'll rest here and once it's time to go we'll go over strategies to deal with them. Any questions?" After nobody raises their hand or says anything, he nods. "Alright, get some sleep. We're moving out in five hours."

I turn to Lizbeth. She is still glaring at me, but according to Klein she glared at him for a good six hours for a small mistake on his part. "How far behind schedule are we?"

"About two hours, now. We did expect to have some delays, but realistically we want to be there as soon as we can."

I nod and turn to find a place to sit down. The hood of a vehicle with some sort of silver angel on the tip is where I eventually settle on. From my spot, I can see everyone else.

Payton is jabbering with Silica about ghosts. Silica seems to be blowing his mind with descriptions of ghosts we had to fight while in Aincrad. It seems they're not actually enemies here, but people still know about them. They seem to be getting along fine. Silica spent the entire trip to this point avoiding my gaze. I can't really say I blame her.

Lizbeth is still her usual self, as far as I can see. She's busy taking inventory. Klein is saying something to her, but they're too far away to hear.

Hisashi has a disturbing habit of fading out of sight when you least expect it. For instance, he was setting out three bedrolls off to one side when I sat down, but between now and me looking for him, he's disappeared. I really need to watch that one.

Christopher has been playing with my goggles. I let each of the Aincrad survivors in our group have a chance to talk to Yui, and once they were all done, Chris asked who we were talking to. He then proceeded to talk to Yui for three hours and counting. It seems he's really into the whole idea of non-human intelligence.

Lastly, there's Henrietta. She's been staring daggers at me along with Lizbeth the entire time I've been walking with the party. As I make eye contact with her, she stops arranging her own bedroll and stalks over towards me. Klein notices and heads to intercept her. I glance over and subtly nod.

I can take care of myself.

Henrietta stops two long steps away from me. "Kirito."

"Yes?"

"I challenge you to a duel."

I stare at her completely serious expression with a slack jaw. "Uh, what?"

"I want you to duel me. Right now."

I look over at Klein. He just shakes his head in a defeated manner. "Okay then."

She opens her menu and starts pressing some invisible keys. After about a minute, a window pops up in front of my eyes.

Player Henrietta has challenged you to a duel.  
Accept? Y / N  
End conditions: Time out (5 min), loss of life  
Additional cond: 300ft boundaries

Not many conditions, huh. It is kind of high stakes, what with one of the conditions being "death." I look over at Klein. "Do you have one of those taser things?"

He blinks a few times. "Uh, yeah. I think Lizbeth has one." He heads over to the pink haired girl and says a few things to her before I see the telltale signs of an item trade.

This room is a lot smaller than three hundred feet from the center to each wall. I can only assume she was intending to give herself the ability to get out of the main chamber if things go sour. Now that I'm thinking about it, this room does provide a lot of cover. A very nice spot for a duel. Klein comes back up to me.

"Er, Kirito? I'm not on your friends list. I can't trade with you."

I look at him for a moment. "Just drop it from your inventory. I'll pick it up."

"Eh... Fine." He navigates his menus a bit until the item materializes in front of him. I snatch it out of the air and add it to my inventory.

"You know, Kirito, it would be kinda useful for me to have you in our party, since then I can check your status."

"I don't particularly want to be in your party."

"Yes, but I'm not letting you get out of this one." A bit of the tough demeanor he used on Henrietta earlier starts to show through.

I snort. "Suit yourself. Send me an invite and I'll get to it."

Henrietta starts to look impatient. "Are you going to accept or not?"

I turn my full attention to her. "Don't worry; I'll be with you in a second. But first, don't you want to make this more interesting?"

"In what way?" She asks suspiciously.

"Simple. We make a bet. If I win, you stop trying to kill me for the remainder of this trip."

"And what if I win?"

I shrug. "I don't know. What do you want?"

"I want you to die."

"Fair enough." I stand up from my seat and casually hit the accept button. A timer starts ticking down from sixty. I step right past Henrietta and head for better cover. She draws the rifle I had seen twice before and checks it's loaded.

I remain unarmed until I get into cover. I pull the newly acquired taser and my silenced pistol from my inventory and check the cloaking system. It's at full functionality.

Chris still has Yui's goggles on his head, so I can't get her help. Oh well, I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to do.

The timer passes the halfway mark.

I call out to Henrietta, currently out of sight behind what probably was once a truck, but now resembles a metal boulder more than anything. "This is only my second duel." I say conversationally. "My first duel was against a gang of murderers only a day or two after I was first able to use a sword. I managed to knock out all... six of them? Can't remember the number now. That was against multiple opponents, before I had any idea of how to _really _fight."

"I'm sure." She responds in a derisive tone. From where the sound comes from, I figure she's edging around to the left of the large metal boulder.

The timer has less than ten seconds now. I equip the pistol in my right hand and loosely grip the taser in my left, with my left index finger hovering over the invisibility button.

The timer hits zero, and I dash to the left.

Two rifle reports occur one after another, one on either side of my cover. One of them comes alarmingly close to skimming my arm, which would have ended the camouflage effect. It seems she decided to just aim one round on either side of the obstacle in hopes she'd hit me dashing out from one direction or another. I had to give her that it almost worked.

Almost.

As both of those shots fail to connect with anything, she turns and dashes diagonally towards the side of the boulder I had left behind. If I hadn't seen her and stayed behind the rock, I might've thought she was still heading left.

Once again, she must get some credit. She used our brief exchange to try to trick me.

I stop in place and look around at the other options for cover. No particularly good ones, aside from the one I just vacated. I settle for a concrete barricade that I should at least be able to fully conceal myself behind. Once I get there, I take brief note that our little fire pit is set up directly behind me. Silica and Peyton are sitting down on two rusty boxes. They're both looking around for the source of the gunfire. They should be safe from any bullets Henrietta fires, but I'm not really willing to take that chance. After all, I'm not familiar with the duel rules here, just with the ones from Aincrad.

Cursing under my breath, I leap forwards to another rusted out hunk, but this one provides significantly less cover. My cloak is down to fifteen percent power form all the movement I'm making, so I disengage it and watch the charge climb back up at a pace that seems to be slower than it had ever been before.

A rifle shot pings of the metal next to my head. Clearly, I have been seen.

My suit is only at forty-three percent, but I decide this will have to be enough. I re-engage the cloaking field and run straight for her position. The charge percentage plummets in seconds.

The cloak fails once I'm less than thirty feet from her. She reacts reflexively, her rifle jerking and firing in my general direction. The metal slug whips past me as I continue charging her. She releases her left hand from steadying the rifle and pulls a pistol from a holster on her hip. She holds her arm out and pulls the trigger three times.

Two of the bullets miss, but the third hits my own left arm and I let go of the taser involuntarily in the pain. I take a few steps to start circling around her, away from the pistol. I've still got most of my health, since that was barely a glancing blow. I'm close enough that my circle around her won't take more than twenty seconds to complete. Halfway through I raise my right arm and start squeezing the trigger. There's the off-chance one of them will hit, but I'm not aiming, instead looking at where I'm going and hopefully distracting her with the sporadic gunfire.

She wisely decides that standing in one place is a poor idea starts sidestepping and firing at me.

My pistol runs out of ammo first, and I quickly draw a new magazine from my belt and slide it into the weapon. I fire an additional few shot before I come full circle.

Her pistol clicks empty and she lets the firearm fall to the floor, her left hand returning to her rifle. Another trio of rounds arcs through the air, and this time one of them gets me in the leg.

I stumble forwards and duck into a roll, coming up to one knee. This halts my movement and I take careful aim. She was obviously expecting me to continue rolling a bit further since her next shots hit the dirt a few feet in front of me. I squeeze the trigger on my pistol and watch as the round grazes her ribcage.

My suit shows me that it's fully charged. I take a painful step forwards and hit the activation button.

Instead of continuing forwards, I take three steps back. Henrietta quickly starts exchanging the magazine of her rifle, eyes on a swivel, looking for any sign of me. My invisibility gives me a brief period to catch my breath, and then I slowly start walking up towards her. I have to be as careful as possible so as to not make loud clanking noises on the metal ground as I creep closer.

I get to her and sidestep to get right behind her. The only warning she gets is the slight pressure of my silencer pressing into her kneecap. I pull the trigger twice, press the gun into her other knee and pull it twice more.

She collapses to the ground, twisting in the air so she doesn't land face first. My cloak overloads and reveals me, battery completely drained. Her rifle comes up to my face, and I barely push it aside with my pistol before it goes off. My left hand swings around and connects with her right arm-

And she promptly screams and goes unconscious. The taser I had recovered during my tumble earlier had gone off once it collided with her arm.

I remain still for half a second. Then I poke her with the barrel of my pistol. No reaction.

I look towards the ceiling of the cavern and note that the duel is still ongoing. Well, the win condition was "death," not "incapacitated." There's still three minutes left. I holster my pistol and place the taser in my right hand, which now rests right on her prone stomach. All I need to do to tase her again is to rotate my wrist a bit.

I look around. The others all seem to have gathered awfully close to where the shots were flying just moments ago.

Everyone remains silent as the timer slowly ticks down to the end of the duel. I check my health. Out of fifty-six hit points, I still have forty-eight. Looking back up at the roof, I can see that her health bar is down to about halfway.

Just like in Aincrad, hit point numbers aren't displayed during the duels to discourage watching them. Only general hit point bars are displayed so onlookers can get an idea of who is winning.

As it is, I'll win the duel by having done more damage once the timer runs out. I feel her start to stir and press the taser back into her flesh. Her back arches in pain as she whines out in pain before collapsing back into unconsciousness.

After what seems like a much longer time than it should have, the duel ends.

I get up off the ground, gathering up the magazine I dropped on the way past it. I only have four of them for my pistol right now.

Lizbeth and Klein both walk up to Henrietta and start attempting to wake her up. I ignore them and head back to my perch. Now I just have to wait and see how things turn out.

Or, maybe I might get accosted by Hisashi.

"You spared her life. Impressive."

I turn my head just enough to eye the tall man out of the corner of my eye. "I don't think I needed to kill her. If she comes after me again all bets are off though."

He nods. "I agree that that she was due for a good wake up, but that's not what I was referring to. I happen to know just how hard it is to spare someone's life in a duel like this. You put yourself at a severe disadvantage when you decided to go in for a non-lethal strike." He pauses.

"Yes, I suppose I did take a risk."

"You and the others from the outside, you are all exemplary fighters, despite your young age. Are all those from the outside this way?"

I can't help but bark out a laugh. "Hah! No, not by a long shot. Those of us here... We're not normal."

He nods slowly. "If you don't mind, would you tell me about where you come from?"

I turn to him fully. "Why?"

"I'm curious. The others refused to talk of you and your world, so I wished to complete my knowledge base."

I shrug. "Sure, why not?"

He follows me over to my spot on the hood of the vehicle and I think for a few seconds.

"Silica, Klein, Lizbeth, Asuna, Kuradeel and I are all from Aincrad. It was a server like you guys have, a simulated reality where are minds can be while our bodies are on the outside. Ours was different in design though. We didn't have guns, but we had swords and shields and other things to fight with. Hit points were much higher, like in the ten-to-hundred-thousands range, and we only got one life. Though, I think the biggest difference is that we didn't know about the outside world. We went about our lives, completely unsuspecting. Klein and Lizbeth have been friends of mine since I was little. Klein ran a guild; Lizbeth was training to make weapons. I grew up wanting to be a hero and they day the server allowed me to fight I got a sword, trained with Klein, and met Asuna. She, ah, was in trouble from a bunch of guys. I swooped in trying to be a hero, and succeeded. I did get arrested though, because over there we had little icons that told you whether a player had harmed another or not."

"Sounds like your first day in the field was pretty eventful." He says amusedly.

"No kidding. This was all after I got my update, which was a bit messed up. You know how there's a little space for an extra command in your menu?"

He nods once.

"That's where the button to let people out is supposed to go. For some reason, the chamber my body was in wasn't functioning properly, which led to glitches and my real body being very weak. After a while, I got into a kill or be killed situation, and being branded a murderer forced me to go up a floor."

"Ah. I managed to get that much out of Silica in our time together. She said that your home was giant castle floating high in the sky, made of many floors that were sealed off until you fought a mighty beast at the end. I also overheard that you were essentially able to go one-on-one with those monsters?"

"Yeah. Long story short, I got halfway to the top and found out that Aincrad was not actually all complete. You know how there's an exit condition for this simulation? The one for us was to kill the guy who made the game. He made himself invincible, but Yui," I gesture at the pair of goggles that Chris is still wearing. "She managed to disable it when it counted. Of course, I found out that most people were unhappy with that, but at the time I thought it was a good idea."

"Very interesting."

"Of course that doesn't really answer your question, does it? Those of us in Aincrad were the party that brought everything down. I ended up lying to the five others from the outside, which is why they all kinda hate me now. We were severely overpowered compared with most of the people who just sat in town and sold goods at a store. No, most of us aren't overpowered. Just the ones you know."

He nods. "That is very informative." He lies back onto the hood of the vehicle and his eyes unfocus as he appears to look at the sky, maybe miles up at this point. "I wish I could have seen it."

"Excuse me?"

"Aincrad. When I asked Silica about her parents, she told me little, but she did tell me of giant mountains, and lizards so big you could ride them. Here, all we have is metal as far as the eye can see below ground, and a thin layer of dirt with barely any plant life in patches on the surface. I wish I could see what she described, as it sounds wonderful."

I study the man beside me closely. This is honestly the first time I had seen him let down his guard. "I suppose. There were a few nice spots that I found on my way up."

His eyes turn to me without him moving his head. "I would appreciate it if you would describe some of them to me."

I lean back and start regaling him with descriptions of locations I had seen. An island in the middle of a lake. Giant waterfalls and immense forests. A field of multicolor flowers that swayed in the wind. Cities, long abandoned, that were carved out of the two sides of a valley. Through it all, he listened with rapt attention.

"It is a shame that such a great masterpiece is lost to us." He says once I conclude.

I arch an eyebrow. "It wasn't only that. There were lakes of lava and other things that make this world seem like a paradise if you got stuck there."

"Still... I would rather like to have seen it."

I look away at the others. "So would they. I don't think Silica understood what was going on. Hell, none of us really did. I just did whatever felt right at the moment, and that got me here."

"As I said earlier, you are quite impressively skilled for someone your age. Our children are trained to fight, but since monsters are so rare near the surface, those that don't go into the military stop learning fighting skills and focus on making things. If they go into the military, it wouldn't be until they're over eighteen."

"Heh. That's still around two years off for me."

"Which is my point. Sure, some people join very early, normally with extenuating circumstances, but for all but one of you to be here at such an advanced level and still under the age of eighteen here is frankly astounding."

For a second confusion arises over "all but one" until I remember Klein is either nineteen or twenty right now, depending on when it is. "Hey, do you have some sort of calendar?" I ask.

"I do. You should as well, seeing as it's built into your menu."

I open it and look around. Sure enough, I find a calendar. I open it up to find the date.

November 18th, 2128. That means I'm sixteen now. I start calculating back.

I have been in here only a few days, and was out of the tubes for about a month before I entered this simulation.

That means that I turned sixteen somewhere around being killed, revived, retrained with a guild, getting kidnapped by my first team, and the end of the simulation.

My update was supposed to be halfway between my fifteenth and sixteenth birthdays, so that means in seven months I've gone from a kid who wanted to be a hero to public enemy number one. Good job, me.

"Actually, Lizbeth should be eighteen now." I comment offhand. "I didn't realize how much time has passed since I started fighting. It all starts to blur together after a while."

"I agree with that, but you make me feel old holding that opinion at such a young age." He chuckles and sits back up. "I'm going to check on some things. Thank you for sharing detail of your past with me."

I shrug. "No problem."

He walks off. I turn and survey those around us. Nobody else is anywhere remotely close to me, so I deem it safe to close my eyes for the moment. I drape my cloak around myself and attempt to get some rest.

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

Lizbeth and I ended up moving Henrietta back to her bed before getting our own rest. My alarm wakes me with its first set of beeps. I roll over to try to get more sleep, only to find I was sharing my bed.

Lizbeth's big eyes look into mine with a look of surprise for a second.

I think my yell woke everybody else.

Lizbeth sits up and yawns. "Wha's'a'matter?"

Several curious faces poke from around the debris I had set up behind for a little bit of privacy. I quickly wave them away.

"Lizbeth, what are you doing in my bed?"

"Ah, I was cold." She flops back down. "I asked you if I could join you, but you must have been talking in your sleep."

"...Okay." I take a deep breath. "Anyway, it's time to get moving."

She nods, eyes still closed. "I'll be up in five minutes."

I turn away and head out to the rest of the camp. Everyone else is busy getting packing up whatever they had pulled out the night before. Peyton looks up, sees me and drops his bedroll to give me his biggest shiteating grin and two thumbs up. I scowl back.

Henrietta is up and packing her bags with rather more force than is necessary. I walk over to her and greet her quietly.

She whips around. "If you think that match means you're-" She notices who she's talking to and seems to reach for a verbal reset switch. "What do you need?" She asks with just a hint of the malice from before.

"Just checking to make sure you're alright."

"I am fine. I need to finish packing up." She turns back to her bags.

"Okay. Have you thought about what I told you yesterday?"

She scowls deeper. "I did."

"And what conclusion did you reach?"

"I... I'm going to try to keep myself from... acting out of turn. Otherwise, I may not survive this trip."

Not what I was hoping for, but about as well as I assumed it could go. "That's better, at least. We'll move out in five minutes."

She turns and scans the camp, stopping when her eyes fix on Kirito.

"Hey," I start in a warning voice.

"I know, I know." She sighs in a defeated tone. "I'll promise not to go after him for now."

That is significantly better than I had hoped for. "Excellent. Why don't you go ahead and thank him for sparing your life?"

She gives me a death glare. "Maybe later."

Ah well.

I walk into the center of the cavern and raise my voice. "Five minutes until we leave. Make sure you're ready!"

Packs are loaded, guns readied, and we prepare to head out.

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

The next few days we're interesting, to say the least. Klein led us down the path and we made better time than we thought we would, quickly catching up and surpassing our estimated time to reach Kuradeel's location.

Silica still is barely even looking at me, but at our fifth break spot, she did come up beside me and sat down next to me in perfect silence for twenty minutes. I think that's a good sign, but I really need to find a way to make it up to her.

Henrietta actually came up to me and made the most awkward apology. For a woman who should be somewhere in her early twenties even if she doesn't look like it she really has a hard time apologizing. She was so embarrassed and uncomfortable it was almost funny. She then proceeded to stand right behind me watching me with eyes so intense I could physically feel them pressing on me. She also seems to have decided to prove she's better than me by finding a monster in our path and challenging me to kill it, or staying up during my watch to make sure "I don't miss anything." At least she doesn't seem to be planning on killing me anytime soon.

Klein and Lizbeth seem to be an item now. Funny how that works. When I asked Klein what had happened, he just stuttered for a second, his eyes bugged out, and he turned around to walk next to Lizbeth. They had some sort of heated discussion for a while, and I decided it was better not to ask.

Hisashi remained his normal stoic self for the rest of the trip so far. If he is curious about Aincrad at all, he isn't showing it.

I learned a lot about Peyton, mostly gleaned from stories he seems willing to tell just anyone about. He tells stories of ghosts and different times he went down into the bowels of the rusty heap that this simulation is comprised of to find really awesome treasure. Often those two stories are one and the same. As time wears on, I do notice that his constantly upbeat attitude and his never-ending flow of stories have a positive effect on the group. Instead of the short attitudes that develop when people have opposing viewpoints, he allowed the rest of us to have some time to relax. Once again, I find myself wondering how much this guy's persona of happy ghost freak is really a facade.

Lastly, Christopher. I barely talked to Yui the whole five days we traveled downwards he was so preoccupied with talking to her. Yui assured me she was learning a lot, so I figured she's fine with it. Chris did ask me a few things about her, but none of his questions were ones I could answer. Things like "How do you transfer her into another computer, like a robot?" or, "Can she be copied?"

All the while, we fight a wide variety of monsters that pop into our way.

Eventually, we reach the last rest stop before we should reach Kuradeel's hideout.

Klein sits us all down in a circle. I sit across from Klein, and note that Henrietta sits down on my left immediately after I choose a spot, and that she's really a lot to close.

"Alright. Tomorrow is make it or break it." He turns slightly to Lizbeth on his left. "How much time are we ahead of schedule?"

"About three hours."

He nods. "Good." He then fiddles with his menu a bit. The map shows up in the center of the circle. "Alright. We're here." He points to a small bend in the trail winding downwards. "Tomorrow we need to cross this area and then we should come out into a large cavern. The floor of the cavern is made out of an aircraft carrier, and on that there's a plane. That plane is where we believe Kuradeel to be."

Silica raises a hand. "Isn't that a really short distance?" She asks pointing to where we are and the destination alternately.

"It is, but there's a large monster we need to slay to get past. That's something we're going to discuss in a minute. For now, I need you all to see how much ammo you have left."

We all open our menus and start sorting through the various ammo types. I've been relatively conservative with my ammunition, only using it when needed or goaded on by Henrietta. I have more 9mm rounds than I know what to do with. I also have a few odd kinds of grenades I'm not entirely sure what to do with. I think I know what the EMP grenade does, but the others are weird. Decoy? Flashbang?

I report my results along with everyone else. The general consensus is that we have less ammo than we'd like, but it should be fine as long as nothing goes seriously wrong. Lizbeth has used more grenades for her launcher than she was comfortable with as well, since that's a really rare type of ammunition and we found almost none of it on the way down.

Klein shows us a description of the creature that's ahead and we develop a plan. Klein then dismisses us for the night and we all see about setting up our sleeping areas.

Before I decide to go to sleep for the night, I make a decision. I really should talk with Silica.

I head over to where she's laying out her bedroll. She notices me once I'm about ten feet away. She stops preparing for bed and stares at me.

"Uh... Can we talk?" I ask quietly.

She looks around for a second before giving me a nod.

I sit down where I was standing and take a deep breath. "I need to apologize for hurting you. I didn't realize how attached you were to Pina, and I selfishly took him away from you without thinking. I realize now that taking away Aincrad wasn't a good idea at all. I know it's a lot to ask, but do you think you'll be able to forgive me someday? I don't like how far my decisions have pushed you, and I want to try to fix what I broke. If you can't forgive me, then I'll just stay out of your way."

She continues to stare at me for a minute or so. Once I figure she's not going to speak, I move to get up.

"Really?"

I sit back down and look back at Silica.

"Are you really sorry?"

I nod. "Yeah. I... After I got exiled and I left you all behind, I made a lot of poor decisions. I almost went crazy, if you ask Yui. It wasn't until I got here that I realized just how bad some of them were. I've been given a second chance to figure things out." I look right into her eyes. "I know I can't make it up to you. I can't really bring Pina back. I just hope that you don't let how much you hate me rule your life."

She frowns and pokes at the little robot that serves as Pina's replacement. "Okay. But you have to promise never to kill anybody I know ever again."

"Not even Kuradeel?" I ask reflexively, internally wincing.

"Well... He's not really a good guy anymore. Maybe he's just made bad choices and needs a second chance. Like you." She stands up, her head now slightly above my sitting form. "You have to give him a chance."

I hesitate. "I..." But then I look into her eyes and see a solid resolve I didn't know someone so young could have. "Alright. I make sure he gets a chance to redeem himself, but I can't promise a third chance."

"That's okay." She says, voice still firm. "He'll get better and we can go on adventures again."

I try my best to keep the half smile I was offering from slipping. To me, it sounds like Kuradeel's way too far gone. I guess I'll have to give him a chance regardless.

I decide to change the subject. "So, how have Hisashi and Peyton been treating you? I hear they made sure you were well looked after once you got to Gunstorm."

She immediately perks up. "Oh yeah! They're both so cool! Peyton has all these great stories, and he always has a cool game to play. Hisashi's like a substitute dad for me, always making sure I'm safe and stuff."

"Is Peyton always, uh, so energetic?"

"Yep!"

She and I continue to talk for a good hour or so. The tension bleeds away, and I find myself enjoying the enthusiasm that almost rivals Peyton's.

Once she gets tired, I say my goodnights and head over to my sleeping roll.

Henrietta watches me with hawk eyes as I walk over to it and lie down. I can't help but notice that her bedroll is relatively close to mine. She's really starting to creep me out.

* * *

Klein wakes us all up, we get our bags packed, ready our weapons and head out. It's only about an hour and a half to the chamber we expect to find the monster barring our path. Sure enough, we arrive and get a vaguely nostalgic feel. These doors seem to be similar to the boss doors in each dungeon of Aincrad, built into the metal around it and seeming so out of place in an otherwise randomly twisting dungeon. I look around and see only determined faces. Everyone knows their roles, and it's time to roll.

Klein steps up, presses on the door, and it swings in of its own volition.

We all peer into the darkness.

Two great big red glowing eyes open up and glare at us. A wave a foul smelling hot air blasts us as the creature hisses.

Klein gulps. "Alright, let's go!"


	25. Chapter 25: Razorwire

Before we begin, I just wanted to say that the term "point blank range" technically means any range where the bullet doesn't drop off away from where the sights are pointing. For a correctly sighted pistol and a decent caliber, this would be over sixty feet away. Go correct your friends so that they too can give you that look that everyone always gets whenever I start a sentence with _technically. _Though, much like how literally now means figuratively depending on context, I don't think anyone will kill you for saying "point blank range" and meaning about a foot away.

Oh, and a warning. There's some touchy stuff alluded to in this chapter. Prepare your mental fortitude or abandon all hope.

Now that I got _that_ out of the way, I hope you enjoy the chapter!

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

_Klein wakes us all up, we get our bags packed, ready our weapons and head out. It's only about an hour and a half to the chamber we expect to find the monster barring our path. Sure enough, we arrive and get a vaguely nostalgic feel. These doors seem to be similar to the boss doors in each dungeon of Aincrad, built into the metal around it and seeming so out of place in an otherwise randomly twisting dungeon. I look around and see only determined faces. Everyone knows their roles, and it's time to roll._

_Klein steps up, presses on the door, and it swings in of its own volition._

_We all peer into the darkness._

_Two great big red glowing eyes open up and glare at us. A wave a foul smelling hot air blasts us as the creature hisses._

_Klein gulps. "Alright, let's go!"_

As we had discussed the evening previous, Klein and Hisashi charge in, Assault rifle and twin SMGs roaring at the nebulous creature. Then Lizbeth, Peyton and Silica follow behind them. Lastly, Henrietta and I deploy to just inside the door. Chris is standing between us, ready to provide support where it's needed.

What greets my eyes is quite amazing. Beyond the black veil covering the door is a great beast, at least twenty feet from paw to shoulder. The front of its body is a lion's, from its massive head to about midway down its back. Then a goat head pops out of its spine halfway down its back. The rear feet are goat's hooves. Finally, the tail is a snake's head, curling around independently and hissing at us.

I had reclaimed my visor for this effort, which means Yui is currently with me. "That's a Chimera. It's one of the nastiest beasts on this server. All three of its heads have their own attack patterns independent of each other, so it's like fighting three beasts at once."

I raise my M95 and start looking down the scope. "What am I aiming at?"

"Its weak points are its three heads. The body can absorb a lot of damage, so it isn't worth firing at its core. However, the heads move erratically, so it is much harder to target them."

Beside me, Henrietta fires a round from her rifle. It nails the lion's head right in between its eyes. The beast roars and lowers its head like a bull getting ready to charge.

Klein calls from his position to the left of the creature. "Scatter!"

I dodge to the left, tucking my shoulder down to roll and come right back up to my feet. The chimera blows past me hard enough that the force of the wind off of its body almost makes me lose my balance. I raise my massive firearm and hardly need to aim before pulling the trigger.

The report reverberates around the chamber. I take a quick glance at the health bar in the top corner of my vision.

Only a tiny chunk has been removed. So tiny that I have to be looking for it. This is going to be a long battle.

Peyton seems to have come to the same conclusion. He puts away his pistol and pulls out a grenade. He pulls the pin and lobs it at the goat head protruding from the chimera's back. The small cylindrical object explodes midair and another small chunk of the beast's health bar goes away.

"Use explosives!" He screams to all of us over the gunfire.

Lizbeth curses loud enough that I catch some of it and she drops the pistol she had been using to unsling the grenade launcher she had left equipped and at the ready. She lines up a shot and squeezes the trigger, launching a grenade high into the air.

The chimera spots it and crouches down, allowing the relatively slow projectile to sail right over its goat head.

That means, being on the opposite of it from Lizbeth, the live round is heading my way. This time, I have to dive to get out of the way, and the blast still hurls me a good fifteen feet before I come to a complete stop. My side feels a bit shattered, so I pry open one eye and look at my health. One hit and I'm already half down. Good thing I moved too. Normally Friendly fire is turned off for groups, but explosive do damage to whoever's within the blast radius indiscriminately.

I need to get myself a grenade launcher. Those are _way_ overpowered.

I roll to my stomach and press myself off the ground, getting my feet under me just as the snake head strikes at my position. I reflexively kick out and the long neck-tail.

That was a mistake. The snake whips around and latches onto my extended leg. One huge yank later and I'm being dragged around the room. My health quickly fades down to single digits.

The snake whips me in Silica's direction. The surrounds blur with the speed that I'm being sent at her. At the last second, she dodges towards the creature.

This may seem like a stupid move, but anyone who's ever fought with something long knows that there's less force closer to the center of rotation than at the tip. When she stepped closer to the base of the tail, she effectively lessened the speed of the object hitting her.

And then suddenly I'm sailing through the air Snake head still lodged into my leg. I see that the neck of the creature had been slashed apart by Silica's blades, freeing me.

I hit the wall at a tremendous speed and almost black out. One hit point left. I quickly pull out a med pack and apply it to my person as quickly as I can, since one errant strike sends me back to the surface. I watch my hit points climb instantly back up halfway- and then they start to drain away again at an even pace. I pull out another med pack and apply it, but the steady hit point drain doesn't stop. I pull out yet another healing item before I notice what's going on.

The snake head is still alive. The one eye I can see is glaring up at me. Its jaw is still gripping onto my leg. I drop the health kit and grab for my rifle. It's a few feet away, seeing as I lost it when I slammed into the wall. I crawl to it as fast as my numb legs can carry me, finally reaching it and bringing it to bear on the snake head.

Three shots at point blank range. The head doesn't look like anything anymore, and certainly isn't moving. I let go of the massive weapon with my left hand and pluck what remains of its fangs out of my leg.

My hit points are still going down. I watch helplessly as it ticks down to one... and then stays there. A purple droplet appears next to my health bar.

I look back to the chimera to see how much health it has, only to find that I don't have my goggles anymore. I look around for them, but they're somewhere I can't readily see them. There is quite a lot of debris scattered around, so it's probably behind something.

I whip my rifle around to look at the main creature.

Lizbeth is now landing shot after shot, yelling something incomprehensible. Chris has placed down a mobile turret which starts to chew into the beast with a steady stream of bullets. The three members of the Spec Ops branch circle it to distract its two heads and keep it confused. I can't see Klein or Henrietta.

I quickly reach back into my menu and search around for an anti-venom. My heart sinks as I find the spot it would be in, yet it's not there. I switch from my inventory to my stats screen. There I can see the details of the poison effect. It's going to still be applied to me for another three minutes.

For those three minutes, I'm going to be one hit point away from death.

I take cover behind an unidentifiable lump of metal and poke only enough of me out that I can set the M95's bipod onto the mound. I peer through the scope and find another thing to add to my list of problems.

Without Yui's ability to enhance my aim, I'm having trouble trying to acquire and keep a target. The chimera dances in the viewfinder and I find myself looking away from the scope to see what's actually going on.

I wait for what seems like a good chance and pull the trigger. The rifle jumps due to the recoil.

And then I realize I have no idea if it hit. I re-steady the rifle and look through the scope. Without a damage indicator, the only sign I hit would be a red mark where the bullet penetrated.

That proves to be a fruitless search as the beast is covered in the red glow of multitudes of successful hits.

The others continue to fire on the chimera, explosion after explosion drowning out all other noises. The air smells of gunpowder and the smoke from so many weapons and explosives of varying types.

I stand back up. If the creature sees me, it's a bit too busy to track me. I pull the weapon up close to my chest and take a deep breath. Reload it. Pull one special piece of equipment out of my bag and attach it to the side of the rifle. One hit point. One mistake, and it's all over.

Then I charge the chimera. The goat head notices me and spits some sort of goop at me. I let my legs buckle and slide under the blast before continuing with barely a second's time lost. The goat head bleats again and the lion head turns to me. It leaps into the air and lands facing me, immediately taking a swipe at me with its claws.

I skid to a stop just in time, the massive claws raking through the air in front of my face. I aim the rifle upwards, past the creature and pull the trigger on the gadget I had stuck on it. The grappling hook pays out, the spear-like point burying itself into the wall high off the ground. I hit the button again and it yanks me upwards. I release the grappling device from my rifle mid-air, carefully timing the release to land on the chimera's back.

And then one of Lizbeth's grenades impacts the lion's face. The chimera rears back and makes it impossible to land properly. I hit the beast's flank and quickly scramble with my free left hand to grab onto the matted fur underneath me. I get a secure handhold, but the goat head now has me in its sights. It rears back to spit more goop at me.

The sound of Henrietta's rifle comes in slightly louder than the rest of the cacophony. A terrifying bleating noise assaults my ears and I can see that Henrietta managed to get on of its eyes. A very impressive shot, considering how much the chimera moves. I'll need to thank her later.

I toss my rifle straight up into the air as far as I can and climb three handholds before I have to reach out and snag it.

The chimera's back legs kick out and they manage to plow straight into Hisashi. He goes flying and hits a wall pretty hard. I don't have time to see if he's alright since the Chimera decides to start bucking around wildly, possibly to shake me off.

I use the momentum from the movements to swing the rest of the way onto its back, right between the lion's mane and the goat head. The goat notices me with its good eye and it tries to do the goop thing yet again. I take two steps right up to it and jam the barrel of my rifle into its mouth.

Now would be a good time for a witty one liner, but I didn't have anything prepared and I'm not good at making them up on the fly. Instead, I just pull the trigger five times, expending all the rounds in the M95's magazine.

Its one good eye bugs out and it tries to scream, but my rifle is blocking its throat. I whip out my pistol and fire it less than a foot away from the goat's good eye, almost guaranteeing a good shot. I expend all of the ammo in that weapon as well.

Somehow, it's still making those noises and trying to spit out my rifle despite now being completely blind. I scramble at my sides to find if I have something, anything, to end this thing's life.

I draw the knife I had fought Silica with a week ago in reverse grip, blade down. The blade is thrust down hard into the chimera's goat skull once, twice, and three times.

It gives one last strangled gasp and the chimera's back legs give out.

The lion whips around and I get tossed off of its back onto the ground.

Well, I'm not dead. That's a good sign. I look up to see the beast staggering around, having a very problematic time trying to maneuver and swipe with its claws.

Those that had been busy circling the chimera to distract it disperse. As I try to get to my feet, I can see Chris heading toward where Hisashi was thrown. Peyton and Klein rush over to me.

"Kirito! Are you alright?" Klein asks after he reaches me.

"I'm alright. I was poisoned by that snake head, but my health isn't dropping below one hit point."

He glances away from the monster occupying the center of the room. "You we're at one hit point _before_ you attacked the thing?"

I shrug. "The medkits wouldn't keep my health up and I have no antidote."

"Which means you ask one of us for one." Peyton hands me an antidote and a medkit. "Preferably before you charge something five times your size and your teammates panic while looking at your health." He pokes a small glass screen on the side of his head. I guess those serve the same function as the goggles?

"Right." I look back at the monster and up to the now dead goat head. It still has my rifle jammed down its throat. "How much health does it have left?"

"Less than fifteen percent." Peyton says, eyes flicking to the small screen. "With it so slowed down, we'll be able to take it out in about, oh, two minutes if we stay cautious."

"But you lost your weapon. Stay. Here." Klein tells me firmly. I raise my hands in defeat, still holding onto the medical supplies Peyton had given me.

They both turn and head back towards the chimera. I take the antidote and down the foul tasting liquid. After a few seconds the little drip icon next to my health bar goes away and I apply the medkit. My health restores to just over halfway.

I get to my feet and peek over the rubble around us.

Lizbeth is just finishing loading grenades into her launcher. "This is the last of my ammo!"

"Make it count!" Klein bellows back.

Silica dashes up the struggling creature and slashes at its leg with her dual blades. It tries to swipe at her, but it has to shift its weight first which gives Silica a large opening to retreat.

Lizbeth fires a grenade into the chimera's mouth as it roars and the round goes off in its throat. A gout of flame escapes its jaws.

Chris comes back from the direction Hisashi had been flung and brings a huge pistol to bear. He squeezes the trigger three times.

The lion gives off one last pained roar before it collapses to the ground.

For a second, everything is silent. Then cheers break out.

I slowly walk towards it and start looking for a way to retrieve my weapon.

"That was awesome!" Silica cheers. Lizbeth gives her a high five.

Klein sits down on a chunk of rubble and takes a deep breath. "Good job everyone." He brings up his menu. "We have four hours until Kuradeel's deadline. Ammo check?"

Lizbeth's cheerful smile turns downwards. "Only five grenades left for my launcher. I'm down to the last of my other explosives as well."

"I used up everything but a case of pistol ammo." Silica says. "I still have my blades though."

Chris appears once again with Hisashi in tow. He seems to be walking, but Chris is definitely steadying him.

"I spent less than two magazines of my rifle ammo." I say. "And one magazine of the pistol ammo."

Peyton opens his menu. "I didn't use much. I have five frag grenades left and all my SMG rounds."

Klein nods and looks at me. "And what about you?"

"I already told you-"

From right behind my sitting position come's Henrietta's voice. "I used one magazine of rifle ammo."

I slowly turn around to find standing right behind me. If I had leaned back, I would have hit her stomach with my head.

"Okay, you don't have to stand so close to me." I mutter.

If she hears me, she shows no signs of it.

"Chris?" Klein calls out.

"I'm good. Hisashi?"

The man shakes his head back and forth. "I spent most of my ammo distracting it. I'm down to twenty rounds of nine millimeter."

Klein nods. "I'm hurting for ammo too. Now, we need to make a plan."

Chris arches an eyebrow. "Aren't we going to rush the plane?"

Klein shakes his head. "Too risky. Kuradeel might decide to pull the trigger early."

"Then, what is the plan?" I ask.

"Well..." Klein begins.

* * *

(Asuna's Perspective)

Kuradeel paces back and forth in front of the screen he had rigged up, probably for my benefit. He had been staring at that screen since he had made that threat to the heads of the military branches.

He does occasionally stop to talk at me, but for the most part he just stares at his screen, chewing his thumb and giggling to himself. Well, he did leave for a long while right after the threat, but not since then. He also never lets go of that briefcase.

Just as exhaustion starts to overtake me again, he turns around in his chair and strides right up next to the bed and leans down so his eyes are right on level with mine. His are completely bloodshot and open wider than you usually see.

"Asuna, it seems like those in charge aren't willing to let us rule the world together. A shame, really. I'll just have to pull this little switch," the suitcase pops open. "And press this button, then this one and this one. And then everything for a mile around will go up in flames. We'll be alright, since we have extra lives to spare. According to all the information I found, the surface of this world will destabilize. That will throw everything into confusion. In the mass hysteria, we will become the next rulers of this reality!"

He started to stare off into the distance during that, but he refocuses on me before continuing.

"Just you and me, Asuna. We're going to make this place our own. Nobody else but us on this server. For ever and ever."

I can't even muster the energy to respond. Hunger has gnawed out a cavern in my stomach and effectively robbed me of any response.

"I'm glad you agree! Too bad we're both going to have to die before I can make our perfect world."

He turns away back to his screen, but turns right back. "Of course, before I detonate the bomb, why don't we have a little fun?"

A chill runs down my spine as his hands head for me...

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

"Everyone ready?" I whisper to those around me.

"Affirmative." Lizbeth says. It's echoed directly into my ear by a small earpiece that Peyton "just happened to have lying around in his inventory."

The others respond in kind.

"Kirito, are you ready?"

His voice comes across the comm units. "Almost. This place is a maze- WAHHHHGG-"

I quickly rip the device from my ear. Once the noise buzzing out of the earpiece stops, I carefully put it back it. "Kirito?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just broke through a rusty grate." A few grunting noises come through. "I'll be back in position in five minutes, according to Yui."

"We'll be going ahead." I say.

I stop paying attention to the earpiece and head towards our target.

We stand at the edge of the biggest cavern I have seen since Aincrad. The full length of an aircraft carrier serves as the floor of the cavern, with a sparse few vehicles strew about it. The ceiling is made of the typical jumble of metal, but seeing it so unsupported is more than a bit unnerving.

"Our target is the large blue and white plane in the middle of the flight deck," I remind those around me. "We're going to approach as fast as we can without breaking stealth."

A chorus of faint murmurs is my only response.

We head towards the plane, sprinting from cover to cover, using predetermined hand signals to point out a route. It's a good thing we came up with hand signals for 'trap', 'bomb', and 'holy shit' before-hand. Kuradeel is fascinated with bombs alright, and after the welcoming party on the surface Chris had warned me of I decided to be a lot more cautious.

From the map data the Army sent us, this aircraft carrier was supposed to be entirely clear. That was the first cue that something was amiss, but all the things rigged to explode if someone bumps into that sheet of metal over there or doesn't see the almost invisible wire stretched between two cars when they try to pass between them.

I hold up my hand and everyone stops behind me. I point down at yet another tripline. I wait for a response and then carefully step over it.

Something snaps. All my muscles tense up for a fraction of a second.

We all dive in a random direction, and I barely cover my head before a bomb goes off.

I stay down for half of a second before leaping to my feet.

"Kirito, we've been made. Hurry up on your end." I draw my assault rifle. "Everyone else ready to go?"

The rest of my team slowly climbs to their feet. All of them look alright. Silica gives me a "v for victory" gesture.

"Alright. Battle positions. Make sure you don't trigger any more traps. Let's go."

* * *

(Asuna's Perspective)

A loud boom sounds through the walls of the plane we're on. Kuradeel stops moving his hands, gets up with a sigh and looks at his monitor. "Looks like someone's here to ruin our fun. I'll take care of them, and I'll be right back."

He exits the room for the first time in... well, he said he'd give the leaders a week to respond, so a week?

He had removed all my bonds, but I'm too weak to fight him. That was a well-timed explosion in that it just barely saved my modesty.

Something inside me tells me to get up, get a weapon and fight him. I muster all my strength, but I can barely move my arm. There's no chance of me being able to fire a weapon accurately in this state.

If I had some of his explosives, I could threaten to blow him up. Or I could attempt to blow myself up. That sounds like a mercy at this point.

With great effort, I lift my head to look around.

I don't see anything I can use. Only a chair, a dresser, a briefcase-

Briefcase?

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

"Klein! Here he comes!" Hisashi's voice comes from over the radio.

The door to the plane opens and Kuradeel steps out.

"Yeah, I see him." I respond.

He lifts up his right hand. "Hello, guests. I'm so glad you decided to knock before you barged in. Now, I have no idea where any of you are, but this remote that I have in my hand will make all the bombs on this aircraft carrier detonate if I let go of the remote. If you shoot me, I'll lose my grip, so I suggest you all do as I say."

He looks all around, grinning. "Now, why don't you all come on out? I know that there are seven of you, so if I see any less I'm going to be mad, and I might just drop the remote on accident in my fury."

The only one of my squad I can see is Lizbeth. We exchange a look.

"I'm waiting. You have until the count of three. One. Two."

I take a deep breath and step out into the light from a spotlight mounted outside the plane.

Kuradeel turns to me. "Klein? Is that you?" He laughs. "They sent you? That's just too funny. How've you been buddy?"

I just stare at him. He shrugs and glances around as a new face enters the light.

"Lizbeth? Does that mean that Silica's here too or would it be too much to ask for a reunion of the Aincrad survivors?" He looks around expectantly.

Silica steps into the light, followed closely by Hisashi and Peyton.

"New faces, too. Unfortunately this is only five of the seven people I know are down here. Why don't you have the other two come out?"

I carefully reach for my radio. "Come out. Right now, it's in our best interest not to tick him off."

Henrietta slinks out from the shadows, soon followed by Chris.

"Ah, good. Now I don't have to blow everyone to little bits." Kuradeel leaps down from the wing of the aircraft and casually leans on the landing gear. "I knew the military was going to send some people down here. Do you want to know how I know this?" He smirks. "This plane has some really nice gear on it. I hear all sorts of things I'm not supposed to. Like, how panicked the generals are. I managed to hear that they were sending a group down to retrieve me, but I wasn't privy to the specifics. This is quite a nice surprise to be honest. I get to see you all one more time before I become the ruler of Gunstorm."

"Do you really think that we're going to let you?" Henrietta growls.

Kuradeel turns to her and bows theatrically. "Ah, we haven't met. My name is Kuradeel. I'm the one with the massive bomb and lots of smaller ones scattered around you."

Henrietta's fingers flex, but she restrains herself from drawing her pistol. Her teeth are grinding loud enough to be picked up by the earpiece though. I'm so very happy she didn't kill us all.

Kuradeel turns to Hisashi and Peyton who each have a hand on one of Silica's shoulders, which are shaking. "Looks like you've got some new friends, hmm? All of you in the Special Ops branch and you still somehow didn't disarm and neutralize all my bombs. I applaud you general incompetence." He turns to Chris. "You... I have no idea why you're here. You look like a mechanic."

Chris grunts an affirmative reply.

"Not very chatty. Oh well." Kuradeel looks down at the remote. "So boring. I thought they'd be better entertainment."

"I still don't understand you plan. Peyton speaks up. "Can you tell me how this is going to work?"

Kuradeel's face lights up. "Really? You're interested? How wonderful! I won't have to kill you just yet."

A shiver runs down my spine. I hope Kirito's job is going better.

* * *

(Kirito's Perspective)

Interesting thing to note about aircraft carriers: They are fricking huge. Without Yui I might've wandered around under here for days before finding an exit with the sheer volume of corridors and rooms. As it is, with the decay and other obstacles that presented themselves, I'm just glad I got out of there none the worse for wear.

I climb out onto the deck right on the opposite side of the pane from the direction the others came in from. I can't see anybody, but that just means they're doing their job and staying hidden. I slink up to the landing gear and start testing handholds on the various surfaces before I start to climb.

Klein had been given some schematics of this plane and we figured the best point of entry would be through the landing gear bay. Though it's normally sealed off from the rest of the plane, this version has an emergency escape hatch for in case the plane is ever under siege. Thankfully, Kuradeel doesn't seem to be guarding this entrance too closely.

I make my way into the bay and start working on unlocking the panel when a detonation goes off outside of the plane.

I don't know what happened, but I can bet you it's not good. I redouble my efforts and manage to poke my head through the hatch just in time to see Kuradeel head out the door and start talking. I don't listen to his words at all, instead heading away from him to find the briefcase and possibly Asuna.

"Yui, do you have any idea where we're going?"

"No. We were only given a small piece of the plane to work off of, so it is hard for me to find a precise location. However, this plane is relatively small and should be searched quickly."

Alright. "Lead the way."

I currently have my pistol drawn and ready to go in case there's someone else down here, though I severely doubt it. Yui leads me through tight hallways that seem to twist around themselves, making sure I can't find what I'm looking for.

"Yui, I think we've been in this room before."

"Yes. We have backtracked to where we opened up the floor to gain access to this aircraft. Unfortunately, these plans are outdated, seeing as they say that a corridor exists back the way we came, yet we encountered nothing but bunk rooms."

"I guess it doesn't matter." I look up at the flight of stairs curling down to the first floor of the craft. "I'm going to try the second floor, okay?"

Yui nods. I creep up the ladder to find a kitchen area. It doesn't look like it has been used at all, lots of random junk piled around.

"Okay, next spot."

I clear a few more rooms before stumbling across something of note. I almost passed it over, but through the mostly shut door I can see the blue glow of a screen. I carefully budge the door open. I walk up to the monitor after deciding that there aren't any traps lying around. The monitor has three scenes on it. One that shows the camera feed from outside. Kuradeel seems to be having a chat with everyone. The second display shows a basic outline of the plan and a few "more valuable" items that Kuradeel was looking up. Finally, there's a screen with what seems to be recordings of the higher ups, specifically their tactical data.

None of the key prompts make any sense, so I just press a few buttons to see if I can change anything. Nothing happens as far as I can tell.

A noise from behind me catches me off guard. I whip around, pistol in hand.

Behind me, through a doorway I hadn't seen on my way in, is Asuna sitting on a big bed. She looks weak and tired, but she has that glint in her eye that shows she's going to go down fighting. She doesn't seem to be wearing all of her clothes, and of the few she still has on, most of them appear to be halfway to off. Lots of rope pools around her, presumably her bindings. In front of her on the bed is a black leather...

Oh, shit.

I slowly put the pistol down and tuck it into the holster on my belt. For some reason, she's not lifting her head up. I softly call out to her. "Asuna? Are you alright?"

She starts. Well, kind of. A small muscle spasm traverses her frame. After a second, and as if it's taking all her concentration to do it, she lifts her head up.

"Kirito?"

For a second, the expression on her face is one of unhappy surprise mixed with relief.

Then the bag in front of her beeps. "Detonation in five minutes."

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

Having gotten bored of telling us of his plans (three times over) Kuradeel decided to ask us about how we got down here.

He asked Silica to talk.

"Well, we were on a different mission and then the general sent us the message you sent them. Then we got ordered down here to stop you."

"All seven of you were on a mission? That's odd. What were you doing?"

"We were hunting down Kirito." Silica says.

Kuradeel seems to ponder this for a moment. "So Kirito got into this server as well. I'll have to make sure to kill him a few times and make sure he doesn't mess up my plans. How many times did you kill him?"

Silica shifts her feet. "Once."

Kuradeel freezes. "Once? Only once? That means he could be anywhere!" Kuradeel's right eye develops a constant twitch. "That means that asshole could be following you down here. He'll kill me and then take Asuna away from me again." He hand grips the device harder.

What happened next might have been avoidable if there was only Silica or only Henrietta, but with the both of them I was unable to silence either.

Silica says, "He promised not to kill you before he gives you a chance."

Henrietta says, "How dare you talk about him like that!"

A wave of terror spreads through my body as the silver haired man slowly turns to the two girls. "What did you say? He promised you what?" He turns more towards Henrietta. "You don't want you target to be disparaged? Somethings not right here."

Then the light comes on in his brain. "He's on the plane, isn't he."

The dead silence serves as enough of a confirmation.

Without so much as a glance backwards, he hauls himself onto the wing of the plane and dashes inside.

The rest of us aren't far after him.

* * *

Well.

That concludes chapter 25, and possibly the last chapter I will post during this semester. I know, cliffhangers suck.

I noticed that when I sort stories in the SAO category by reviews, I am now on the front page. Thank you to everyone who helped get me there.

We're entering the endgame as far as this fic is concerned as well. I'm thinking probably another five chapters or so.

Thanks for reading, and I hope ya'll stick around until the end.

P.S. I think I turned Lizbeth into Nora Valkyrie in my head somewhere along the way. This is disturbing me greatly.


	26. Chapter 26: Rescue

I finally gave in to popular demand. Now to announce the ships-

Huh?

Oh, nevermind. I have added tags to each break where the perspective shifts. This should hopefully fix the confusion. If it doesn't, I don't know what to tell you. I might have missed a few since I skimmed the chapters. If you find one, send me a PM and I'll fix it.

Oh, the trigger warning from last chapter is still in effect. Only times ten. I scare myself a little with this chapter.

Enjoy!

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

We didn't wait for Kuradeel to do whatever he's planning on doing. The moment he's out of sight, everyone's eyes turn to me.

"Follow?"

Nods all around.

We scramble up to the wing Kuradeel had been standing on and follow him into the plane.

Immediately upon entering the plane there are three separate corridors to take.

I point to the left. "Lizbeth, Silica and Chris go down to the left." Then I point to the right. "Hisashi, Peyton. You two take the right." I gesture for Henrietta to follow me. "We're going straight."

All of them head in the directions I send them. A small, grim smile crosses my face. They're finally listening to my instructions. Henrietta pulls up right beside me and tests the weight of her rifle.

I check the chamber on my rifle and step forward into the passageway. The corridors are tight, and it occurs to me that Henrietta's rifle isn't the best weapon in these tight chambers.

I hold up a hand to signal her to stop, then gesture to the weapon on her hip. It takes her a second, but she gets the point quickly. She exchanges her weapon and we head forward.

The plane is a maze. We encounter corridors that lead in tight little circles, dead ends, and locked rooms. On top of that, there's bombs rigged to detonate every five feet or so. The three groups I had split us into meet frequently from different directions as we search. We maintain a steady searching pace, despite every nerve in my body screaming at me to hurry up, because I know deep in my head that rushing this will be inviting disaster.

The most frustrating part, though, is the inconsistency of the traps. One hall will have so many wires crisscrossing it that it would take an hour to disarm them, but the room of to the right will have all of three tripwires and has doors to the other side of the hall. This isn't a guarantee that there will be a good path, either. Some rooms seem to be so thoroughly and completely blocked from all sides. This did help a bit, as we know Kuradeel didn't have time to make that many traps before we got to that spot, so we don't have to search it.

Henrietta had a very good idea about three minutes into the hunt. She leans over to whisper in my ear. "We should follow the heavily trapped, but bypassed corridors to see if they lead to Kuradeel."

Following that line of logic, we quickly follow what starts to seem like a trail up two flights of stairs and back down another flight, then back through a room I swear we've been in before.

I almost decide to turn around and start searching some other rooms when two gunshots ring out, a distinctly female cry of pain and then a monotone "Detonation in thirty seconds."

* * *

(Four minutes and thirty seconds earlier, Lizbeth's Perspective)

The three of us head up forward into the plane, only to discover all the passages are completely choked with traps. There is only one viable route that leads straight up a flight of stairs. We come to the largest room I've seen on a plane. There aren't any traps in this room, but what is in here is arguably worse.

A smaller version of the chimera is lying down in the room. It raises its heads at the sound of the door opening.

Chris curses under his breath and quickly draws out his turret. It starts firing as soon as it hits the ground, and the chimera howls in pain. Silica draws her daggers and dashes forwards. I pull out my pistol and take careful aim at the lion head's eyes.

I empty my first magazine into its face and manage to blind one of its eyes.

Silica swoops in and slashes with her weapons. Unlike the bigger chimera, this one's skin isn't thick enough to completely ignore her blades. It howls again and attempts to knock Silica over with its snake tail.

Chris fires a burst from his submachine gun and the tail halts mid swing.

It takes a brief moment to taunt him, but by then I have the next magazine loaded and ready to fire. I take careful aim and splatter the snake head against the pristine walls of the plane.

Silica dives under the beast and slashes up the other side, though I can't see her. Still it looks like this fight might take a while.

An idea grabs me. I may be almost out of grenades, but that's not the only source of explosives around here.

I shout to Chris before turning and heading back the way I came. "Hold it off for another two minutes!"

Chris bites through his ever-present cigarette, but shifts his position to cover my retreat.

I quickly head to the nearest trap and examine it. If I can disarm it, I can grab the explosive and trigger it on the chimera.

I pull out a survival knife and start tracing the wire to where it's mounted. There I find a gray, mostly featureless box that I had been seeing all over this damn plane. I jam my knife into the crack between the wall and the box and pry it off. The adhesive side has some simple-looking instruction for arming the device, so it should just be the reverse, right?

I fiddle with the box for what seems like an eternity, but must have been about thirty seconds before deciding I can't actually disarm it. A second idea strikes me. I move closer to the other end of the tripwire where the cable is connected to give me enough slack to work with. I make a loop in the cord and slide my knife in pushing the knife away from me sharply to sever the wire.

I now have a bomb attached to a four foot length of cord.

I run back to Chris and Silica. Both of them are still standing, but Chris is slowly losing ground.

I yell at the chimera. "Over here, ugly!"

The lion head turns to look at me and opens its mouth to roar at me. I jam the explosive it on the open maw and throw a knee at its jaw to close the gaping mouth back up.

Then I pull on the dangling rope hanging from its mouth.

The explosion is muted by dint of being encased in monster flesh. Now the lion head hangs dead and with the snake head gone that only leaves the goat head.

Before I can even think of a plan, there's a burst of gunfire from Chris followed by a perfectly timed grenade that disappears down the beast's throat a second before it explodes.

We all stare at it; waiting for it to suddenly lash out at us, but it stays dead.

"Everyone alright?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Yep."

"Good." I point towards the far door. "Let's go."

The door opens up into a completely untrapped corridor.

From a few doors down, two gunshots and a scream tear through the silence.

I glance at my two compatriots. "That sounded like-"

"Asuna." Silica finishes quietly.

We head for the door.

* * *

(Four minutes and thirty seconds earlier, Kirito's Perspective)

"Detonation in five minutes."

Ah, shit. "Yui, can that be deactivated?"

"Yes, but you need to get to it as soon as possible. I need to reverse engineer the deactivation code."

I take a step forward to get the case. Asuna recoils violently, the briefcase still in her hands. "Stay away!"

"Asuna, I need that case. If it goes off, we're all going to die." I take another step closer and she jerks back into the wall behind the bed. "S-Stay away! I said stay away!"

"Yui-"

"She's quite obviously really stressed. You need to be gentler with her. She was locked up with Kuradeel for a week or more." Yui frowns. "What did Kuradeel do to her?"

I have to agree with the robot. Asuna's... not alright. She's usually pretty headstrong, and definitely not _this._

"Detonation in four minutes."

I take a shaking breath and attempt to calm myself down. "Asuna, I need that case. Just push it over, okay? I can deactivate it, but I need to be holding it.

She doesn't react to my words, and her eyes look like they're glazed over. I slowly raise my hand to reach towards the suitcase, but even that small movement sends a shudder through her frame.

"Maybe if we get Lizbeth-" Yui starts.

"No time. We need to get that case. I'm going in."

"Kirito, you can't. I'm not connected to her vitals, but I can still tell that that is a terrible idea."

"We're all going to die if I don't get it."

"She's going to be irreversibly mentally damaged if you go in now. You need to calm her down first. Please."

I eye the little AI. "Fine, but I'm only going to try for a minute before I give up and take it." I refocus on Asuna. "Asuna. You know who I am, right? I'm Kirito. We fought together back in Aincrad. You're safe now since Klein, Lizbeth and Silica are out there dealing with Kuradeel, so you're safe now. I do need that case though. Asuna, can you hear me?"

Still absolutely no reaction. Did she go deaf or something?

"Asuna." I find I have to keep my voice steady through sheer force of effort. "Come on, give me something."

No reaction.

"Yui, any ideas?"

"Detonation in three minutes."

"Hold on Kirito. Don't do anything rash." Yui's voice sounds stressed.

"I asked for ideas."

"And I'm _working_ on it. Usually, someone in this state is given hours to come down. I'm trying to formulate a plan that doesn't send her any further into catatonia."

"Clock's ticking."

Yui's avatar stops moving, then disappears completely. She must be using every bit of spare processing power.

"Detonation in two minutes."

Well. Time's up.

I take another step forward, get the same reaction. Yui pops back into view.

"No! Don't!"

I rip the goggles off my face and clip them to my belt. Another step. Another.

Asuna turns towards the wall and starts scrabbling at it as if trying to claw through the metal.

I reach the edge of the bed and carefully reach over to grab the case.

Asuna whips around and latches onto the case. I tug at it, but I only succeed in rocking the bed a bit.

"Let go, Asuna. I need the case."

She continues to hold on.

"Let. Go."

I grab her hand and attempt to pry her fingers back, but as soon as I get a hand off she grabs it all the tighter. Her knuckles are white and her arms are trembling with all the effort she's putting into it. I could break her fingers-

"Detonation in one minute."

"I don't have time for this!" I snarl. I pull out my pistol and aim it at her forehead. _"__LET. GO. NOW."_

Her face starts to contort, but her grip only gets tighter-

I pull the trigger twice.

Neither of the rounds hit her, but they do soar right past her head, and the sound is unbelievably loud in this confined space. She shrieks, and in that moment of surprise her grip loosens.

I rip the case from her grasp and plug Yui's goggles into the system.

"Detonation in thirty seconds."

The goggles are placed back over my eyes. Yui gives me a look before pointing out a yellow button off to one side. I press it with my thumb and the countdown stops. Two seconds left.

Lizbeth, Silica and Christopher burst into the room. Lizbeth immediately heads over to Asuna, and the others come over to me. Chris crouches down next to the briefcase. "It's stopped?"

"Yeah. Yui told me what to press." I toss the goggles to him and he slips them back on.

Klein bursts in, followed by Henrietta. "You got the bomb? Oh, good, I thought I heard... What's wrong with Asuna?"

I glance over to Asuna. Lizbeth and Silica are hugging her, and she seems to be crying. Ah, that's probably my at least partially my fault, isn't it. I holster my gun.

Klein notices the motion. "Wait, did you kill Kuradeel?"

"No. Did you?"

He shakes his head. "Was he here?"

"Not that I saw."

"Then who were you shooting at?"

Silence descends for a few seconds, broken only by a sob coming from the girls' location.

Chris speaks first. "He was firing at Asuna."

"WHAT!?" Come a chorus of voices.

I glare at the headset. "I had to get the case away from her. She had a death grip on it."

Lizbeth has a truly terrifying look on her face, but I meet her eyes when she talks. "And you didn't, say, ask her for it?"

"Of course I did. I spent a few minutes asking her to give it to me, but she wouldn't."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." I raise my hand and snap my fingers. Asuna's grip on Lizbeth tightens. "She's so out of it she had a death grip on it."

"_And you thought it would be a good idea to SHOOT at her?"_

I hold eye contact for another half a second before turning and ripping the case out of Chris' hands. "Do you see this screen? Two seconds left. If I hadn't gotten the case, we'd all be dead. Would you rather be dead?"

Klein tightens his fist. "What is wrong with you, Kirito? What's wrong with you that you found that as an acceptable course of action?"

"It was either that, blow up, or break her fingers." I say in the calmest tones I can manage. "This was the best of those options."

"You could have knocked her out." Klein says, also audibly controlling his temper. "Which she might not have been freaked out by."

"She was already freaked out. When I walked into the room, she was busy trying to arm the bomb. She barely even recognized me."

"Beside the point and you know it." He points an accusing finger at me. "Why didn't you just knock her out?"

I throw my hands in the air. "With what? The only non-lethal weapon I have is a _taser, _which hurts _a lot_ and doesn't reliably put anyone to sleep. I don't think I would've been able to get close enough to knock her out with my fists."

Klein deflates a bit after that.

Silica raises a hand. "You could have thrown something at her."

I glare at the youngest of our group. She shrinks into herself and goes back to taking care of Asuna.

Hisashi and Peyton walk into the room. Hisashi turns to Klein. "What's going on?"

"The bomb was counting down to detonation, Kirito stopped it, but he... well, see for yourself." He gestures to Asuna.

"Ah. And who took care of Kuradeel? We did not encounter him on our path up here."

Chris blinks. "Not us. A mini chimera, but no Kuradeel."

Klein shakes his head.

Dread creeps down my spine. "Then where is he?"

Beat.

I scramble for my weapons, already heading out the door. In the back of my mind I note that some of the others are following me, but I don't pay them much attention.

If Kuradeel wasn't heading back to either get Asuna or his precious bomb, what is he doing?

* * *

(Klein's Perspective)

I watch first Kirito, then Henrietta, Chris and Peyton tear off down the hallways. I hope they find Kuradeel soon, but in the meantime, I have to see what can be done about Asuna.

Kirito's goggles are lying on the floor where he had dropped them after ripping them off of Chris' head. I pick them up and put them on, taking a few steps away from the others and talking quietly so as not to be overheard.

"Yui, what's your version of the story?"

Yui looks reluctant to tell me, but she does eventually open her mouth to speak. "Kirito wasn't entirely in the wrong. She... She looks like Kuradeel took advantage of her. She's very weak, and she shows all the signs of being sexually abused. If we had had more time, maybe a day or two, we might have been able to calm her down enough to get the suitcase peacefully." She hangs her head. "I wasn't able to come up with a good way to talk her down in the time I had."

"I'm sure it's not your fault." I say.

"That as it may be, but... well, I wasn't too helpful either. Upon further analysis, Kirito's actions were probably the most prudent, even though it had this effect on mama." Yui turns away from me to look at Asuna's quivering form.

"What exactly did he do?"

"He tried to get her to recognize him for the first three minutes, and then when she still wouldn't respond except to try to get away from him, he had to get the suitcase. She-" Yui chokes up. "She was scratching at the walls, trying to get away. Kirito tried to get the case away from her while she wasn't clutching it, but she latched onto it like a lifeline and wouldn't let go. Kirito had to get her to let go, there was only thirty seconds left..." Yui shudders. "He really only had two options. One was to scare her enough to force her to lose her grip or shoot her dead."

I sit still and ponder that for a second.

"Kuradeel and Kirito both have a lot to answer for." I finally say.

"What would you have done differently?" Yui asks quietly.

"I would have let all of us blow up. I couldn't have made that choice." I take a deep breath and turn back to the others. "How is she?"

Lizbeth gives me a look. "She's in some kind of shock. Can you give me Yui's goggles? She's supposed to be some kind of therapist program, and if I understand what that means, Asuna needs a lot of therapy."

I take off the device and toss it underhand to Lizbeth. She slides them over her eyes and looks back down at Asuna.

Hisashi touches my arm lightly and points towards the door. I nod and follow him out.

He leans against the wall next to the door on one side, like a lazy security guard, and I follow suit on the other side of the door. He slides the door closed.

We sit in silence for a minute or two.

"I've seen this before." Hisashi finally says.

I raise an eyebrow at him.

He nods. "It happened to my family, to be honest." He flicks some imaginary dust off his stealth suit's shoulder. "Klein, have I earned your trust?"

"Uh... well, you ARE a member of the Spec Ops, but as far as I can tell you're pretty upright."

He sighs. "You're preparing to defect from your branch though, correct? I ask because you haven't mentioned this to me, and suddenly declaring your intent to defect right after we complete one of our missions probably wouldn't go so well, would it?"

I eye him again. "How'd you find out?"

He smiles lightly. "It's not like I placed a bug on you. You happen to have a voice that really carries, and I was right inside the train while you were having that conversation."

"Ah. Right."

"Anyway, I've finally made up my mind. When Kirito leaves the server, I want to go with him."

I give him an incredulous look. "Why?"

He looks up, as if he can see the surface through miles of metal. "I have a family here. A wife and a daughter."

"Really?"

He doesn't acknowledge my question. "I wanted to quit the Spec Ops about five years go, but I was deemed too valuable to let go. So, they did what they're good at. My family was kidnapped, held in prison for a month while they were searching for me." He slowly shakes his head. "I found out about their plight and went in to save them, but what I found there... I gave myself up, and promise to work for them as long as they did as much as they could to punish their tormentors and get them back to their proper states of mind. I did see results, but not for a year. Right now, they're in 'protective custody', and I know that the perpetrators haven't been punished. I want to get my family out. Kirito currently represents the best option for getting us out of here." His wan smile returns. "It looks like I'll be defecting as well."

I snort. "Wow, we're the worst assassins ever. Henrietta somehow became enamored with her target; I found I couldn't pull the trigger, you want him to help him escape... I think Silica's starting to come around to him. Lizbeth's still a bit cagey, but I'm sure she'll come around eventually. I don't know about Chris and Peyton though."

"Peyton will follow me where I go. He has no loyalty to the Spec Ops, but has decided to be my right hand as long as he able."

"That sounds like a story and a half right there."

"It's not mine to tell. If Peyton wants to share, he will."

"And we have no idea of Chris' loyalties."

Hisashi hesitates. "No, he's probably loyal to the Coast Guard. The other branches like to make fun of them, but they are the most singular and cohesive of the branches. If we plan to defect and want our defection to go unnoticed for as long as possible, we'd best do it while he's not around."

I nod. "Okay." I let the silence permeate for a while before saying my next thought out loud. "How are we going to get Asuna out?"

"Well, there are a few options, but they mostly depend on how she is after the girls are done helping her. If she can walk under her own power and fight, she can follow us with whatever method we choose to get ourselves out. If not... maybe it would have been a mercy if Kirito had shot her."

My muscles tense for action without conscious thought.

He holds up a hand to forestall any action on my part. "I know it sounds horrible, but if Asuna's on the same level as the rest of you, it's highly unlikely that she'd die permanently. She would reappear back in either the Navy's respawn room or the slums, depending on if Kuradeel forced her to change allegiance while he had her captive. There, she could be given proper psychological help."

I force myself to relax. "I do see your point, but..."

"It's honestly something I considered for my own family. It is unfortunate that I am such a weak man, or I would have been able to free them and suffer whatever consequences were visited upon me long before now."

"I can't claim to be a master of this stuff or anything, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have liked you to suffer for their sake."

"Maybe you're right." Hisashi goes back to staring through the ceiling.

* * *

(Kirito's perspective)

It wasn't hard to find Kuradeel, to be honest. Too many passages are blocked off, too many twist around but lead to the same place, that I quickly figured out where he probably went.

On my way up, I had passed a room that looked like a safe, but instead of shelves for holding items, it has a couch, a few chairs, a table and stored rations for possibly several months. The most glaring inconsistency was that the big handle to lock the door was on the inside of the safe. I had searched it for a few fractions of a second before deciding it didn't match the video and move on.

It occurs to me now that if Kuradeel's running scared, there's no better place than a safe room. I lead the three following me right up to the giant metal door.

It is, of course, locked shut.

That doesn't stop Peyton from testing the handle. The door doesn't budge an inch. "I saw this door on my way up, but I didn't think much of it." He comments. "It wasn't locked closed when we passed it, so we must have missed Kuradeel somehow."

Henrietta nervously swings her pistol to cover the two doors leading into the corridor. "That is quite disturbing to hear."

"Yeah, well, this place is a maze."

"Agreed." Chris says. He looks thoughtfully at the door. "I can get this open, but it's going to take ten minutes."

"Really?" I glance sidelong at him. "How are you going to do that?"

He proceeds to pull five tools out of his belt. "Acetylene torch, crowbar, WD-40, two suction cups, and this." He holds up two cords connected to a block. One is red, the other is black. When he brings the ends in his hands together, a loud crack of electricity arcs between the exposed metal tips. He sets those down and gets himself another cigarette before fetching a metal mask and some thick gloves. "You might want to look away, these things are bright."

I move into the next room and pull three chairs out of it. I set them facing the exits and sit down on the middle one. Henrietta sits down on my left, Peyton on my right.

Behind us, the acetylene torch fires up.

Henrietta leans in and whispers to me. "What are we defending ourselves from?"

I hesitate a second. "We don't know for sure Kuradeel's in there. If he's not, then we can't let him get the jump on us."

Peyton frowns. I don't know how he leaned in without me noticing, but he did. "How did he lock the door if he's in there?"

"Maybe there's another way out?" Henrietta suggests. "Or maybe he has it on a remote control."

I shake my head. "I don't think he'd have a remote. If there's another exit, we're screwed anyway since he can just leave through the other door at any time. Besides, I didn't see any doors when I passed by here earlier."

"Which explains how you managed to lead us straight here." Peyton grins.

I have to give him that.

Henrietta puts her pistol in her lap and rests her chin in her hands. "If he does escape across the deck of the aircraft carrier, we can't even follow him effectively since he has all those traps up on deck."

"Which is why all four of us are still here and none of us are trying to look for other passages." I conclude. Over my shoulder, "How's it coming?"

"Well," Chris' voice comes out muffled by the mask. "I've almost melted through the metal plate over the locking mechanism. Then all I have to do is wrench that out, grease it up and then we can pull the door open."

The end of his sentence is punctuated by something heavy crashing to the floor. The glow from the torch dies and I turn around. Chris has cut a two foot by two foot hole into the front plating of the door, leaving the workings of the door open to the world. I step up next to Chris.

"Oh, is someone knocking on my door?" Comes Kuradeel's voice through the door.

I hurriedly shush everyone else. "You're dead meat." I call back. "You're not getting out of this alive."

"Kirito? What a treat! I beg to differ. You see, I have this whole place set to blow. I told all of your 'friends' about it. I, on the other hand, will be able to survive inside this room. It was designed to survive the worst humans can come up with, which is a lot more than I can throw at it."

"So, why haven't you activated them yet?"

"I am still holding out hope that you will all see the light and leave Asuna and I alone. Not that I actually trust you to do that, but I thought I'd at least offer before ending your pathetic lives."

I tap Peyton on the shoulder to get his attention while I talk. "We've seen what you did to Asuna. I'm not turning her back over to you."

"A damn shame. She would be as unto a queen under me, but you would deny her that?"

While he talks, I mouth some words to Peyton._ Find out all you can about this room._ He nods and brings up his menu. I then turn my attention back to the door. "She wasn't exactly sane when I found her. She was trying to active the bomb you've been threatening to use."

There is a brief pause accentuated by Chris' attempts to remove the bars holding the door in place. Then Kuradeel starts to laugh.

"What? What's funny?" I call through the door.

"Don't you see? I told Asuna my plan, and after you all showed up, she decided to help me carry it out! Obviously, she's on my side. Maybe if I don't blow you up now, she'll come back and kill all of you to free me."

I barely heard the second half of his words. Asuna couldn't possibly...

She REALLY didn't want me to get that case. She _was_ trying to detonate the nuke. Wait-

My brain goes into full on shutdown mode.

"What, cat got your tongue? I bet you didn't think she'd ever choose me over you, you stuck up asshole!"

The three others look at me with various looks of incredulity.

"What are you even talking about?" I call back, gesturing for Peyton to continue looking up the room.

"Oh, don't be stupid. While you were around, all she saw was you. You, who never once looked back at her! Meanwhile, I was always by her right side, always there, and she never even glanced at me! When you died, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. Once she finally got over you, she started to look in my direction. I finally had a chance! And then you miraculously come back from the dead and all my hard work went out the window."

I stare blankly at the door for a few seconds. "Wait, you say she had a crush on me?"

"Yes! And you're way too self-absorbed to see it! It frustrates me to no end!"

Henrietta steps right up next to me. And punches my shoulder. I probably she be figuring out why, but I'm too busy talking to Kuradeel right now. "There's... That's not..."

"Oh, of course you couldn't see it. It's just like in those books I read as a kid. The hero is always so intelligent and able to figure out the toughest puzzles but is so blind to other people's love that most people brand him clueless, despite any other evidence to the contrary. Do you fancy yourself a hero, Kirito?"

A large solid cylinder of metal is removed from the door.

"I... I used to think I was a hero. I've recently had a few nasty surprises."

He laughs a particularly nasty and high pitched laugh. "Excellent! Now you can stop being such a pretentious prick, stop being suck a clueless idiot, and KILL YOURSELF!"

Chris wiggles the second of the three bars locking the room shut out of the frame. One more and we can get in.

Peyton makes his screen public and shows me what he found out about the room. I briefly glance over it. There's no way for Kuradeel to detonate the explosives, since the room is sealed from radio waves via Faraday cage and is airtight. He's bluffing.

"Kirito? I didn't hear the sound of your head blowing off, so I assume you didn't kill yourself."

"Why would I? Just because you think you're right doesn't mean you are."

"Now you're using pseudo logic? Come now, I thought better of you."

Chris pulls out the last bar. He stands of and affixed the giant suction cups to the door. Then he reaches down, grabs the black cord and hands the end to me. It seems to have teeth and by experiment I find it opens and closes if I squeeze the rubber behind the metal, the jaws open.

"I thought better of you too. I saw you save Silica's dragon with a rare weapon."

"That was just to score points with Asuna, and you know it. Oh wait, maybe not. You still seem to be acting like a hero."

Chris attaches the red plug to the lip of the door. He point to the opposite side and gestures for me to clamp my side to the lip nearest me. A small arc of electricity appears once I get close enough. Despite the hair rising on my arm, I clamp it to the given position.

Chris grins in a feral manner and grabs the rubber suction cups and gives them a big pull.

Kuradeel's voice spikes up a pitch. "Hey! What do you think you-AAAAAAAAIIIIIIGHGHGHHG"

Chris continues to pull the door open and I aim my pistol at the ever-widening crack. Inside, I can see the room mostly the same as I had found it earlier, but now the lights are on and there's a black haired, greasy man staring at his burnt palms.

"Kuradeel!" I shout.

He looks up. "I should have known you weren't alone." He moans.

"Henrietta." She turns to me and I hand her a taser, similar to the one Klein had lent me in the duel with her earlier. "Make sure he's down."

Henrietta heads into the room. I tune out Kuradeel's screeches which get more and more imploring with every breath.

Peyton turns to me. "You're going to spare him?"

"If I kill him, he just goes back to the Army's headquarters. This way, we can get some useful information out of him first."

Peyton nods approvingly. In the background, the screeching stops as the taser discharges.

* * *

Lizbeth fiddles with her grenade launcher in front of me. I had come to ask for a report on Asuna's condition, but she seems strangely reluctant to give me anything. "She's able to recognize us properly now. She flinches at the sight of Klein and Hisashi, but not any of us women. Yui thinks Kuradeel used her for whatever he wanted to, which is why she seems to only be afraid of the men in our group. She might get better with time, but you certainly didn't help."

"Look, I'm sorry, but-"

"Yeah, yeah, we'd all be dead now if you hadn't. Yui told us. Still." She puts the oversized weapon into her inventory. "I wish you had figured out some other way."

"Me too."

She shrugs. "Good as I'll get, I suspect. Now, I need to go castrate Kuradeel."

"Not that he doesn't deserve it, but why?"

She turns around, stalks right up to me and points a finger in my face. "You don't know the half of it. He didn't just kidnap Asuna. Oh no. He tied her up and left her there for seven days. He didn't ever take off the bonds until he decided to have his way with her. She wasn't given anything to eat, she wasn't able to move," Lizbeth's finger starts to shake with rage. "He is the absolute worst piece of shit to ever exist _anywhere ever_."

"Okay. Yes, let's go castrate him. Do you have any poorly maintained knives? That should hurt a bit more."

* * *

We don't actually end up cutting of Kuradeel's family jewels, but only because Hisashi said to wait for other interrogation methods to fail first. Save it as a last resort. Most of us got a good rest; Kuradeel's periodic screams didn't seem to do anyone's sleep any harm.

I head to the cargo hold we decided to keep Kuradeel in. Hisashi is standing on the outside of the door. "Did you get anything useful out of him?" I ask.

"No. Not through lack of trying, he broke easily. He just has little of worth in his head."

I shrug. "Oh well. Since you missed the meeting last night, Klein decided that we're leaving after we deal with Kuradeel."

"And how are we going to do that?"

"Well, I have an idea..."

If Hisashi doesn't like the almost manic glee I'm deriving, he doesn't show it.

I stride into the room and sit down on a stool a few feet away from Kuradeel. His swollen eyes turn to look at me. "What, here to gloat? Not very heroic."

I smile my most terrifying smile. "Oh, didn't you hear? I'm trying to give up on that." I lean down. "You know, Kuradeel, I know you're expecting us to kill you. Send you to prison on the surface. They're actually quite nice. I spent twenty four hours in one. I don't think comfortable is something you should ever be. See, there are some interesting differences between Aincrad and Gunstorm. In Gunstorm you have lives, but less survivability. The item system is a lot less rigid, allowing for people to cut open doors and make new items from already existing ones. Unlike in Aincrad, you don't starve. Oh, sure, you get really weak, and it hurts like hell, but you can't ever die. So I had an idea. Hisashi here has the contact info for the Army in our group. He's the one to inform them to be expecting you." I straighten up, get off the stool and walk over to the battered man. "If he tells them you died, do you think they'll look into it? And then we tell the others we killed you and sent you to prison. Only we two will know the truth. That I locked you in here, tied up, no food or water, and decided that no one should ever find out about this place. List it as empty, no good loot, too dangerous and the sensible people will stay away. And you can sit down here and starve until you grow old and die. That didn't change between Aincrad and here."

A look of absolute terror dawns on his face as I straighten back up and gesture for Hisashi to leave as I stride through the door. I turn back at the last second. "Maybe, if I'm feeling generous that day, when I leave I'll tell someone that you're down here. That won't be for at least a month though."

I slide the door shut behind me, drowning out the desperate pleas.

Hisashi is staring at me appraisingly.

"What?"

"I just decided that crossing you is tantamount to suicide and I should just save myself the stress and shoot myself now if I had any plans to get on your bad side." He grows a grim smile. "Can I offer you a position in Special Operation's torture unit?

* * *

(A/N)

I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but I amalgamated two sets of two characters from canon. First, Yui and Sinon. Right now, Yui looks like Sinon, all her personality upgrades she got (Labeled Sinon if I remember right) are based on her in-game personality. The other character was Kuradeel and Sugou Nobuyuki, the antagonist of the Alfheim arc. I obviously couldn't state this before Asuna got captured or I'd spoil the plot. If you're wondering where those characters are, that's your answer.

Tasers don't work the way Kirito's taser did in chapter 24. They just paralyze you by sending electricity to all of your muscles, which makes all of them activate at once. The fall that comes after _can_ knock you out, but not reliably. Obviously, I need to read up on the weapons I use in my story before I use them. I now choose to rule that the designers of GunStorm saw too many TV shows and decided tasers get a fifty/fifty chance of knocking someone out.

See you next time!


	27. Chapter 27: Trauma

Two year anniversary! Or, it will be. In like two days.

You guys are the best.

I just noticed that if a war breaks out I'll have a battle of five armies.

Four ninths of the characters all belong to one of those militaries.

I am now going to confirm that one of the pairings for this fic is Kuradeel x Air Force One x Nuke-chan.

Latin is a stupid language, but still good for mottos. Apparently.

I have a test I should be studying for.

_WHY AM I STILL WRITING THIS?_

* * *

All nine of us, Klein, Lizbeth, Silica, Asuna, Hisashi, Peyton, Chris, Henrietta and I stand in a loose circle in front of the plane. We had cleared a small space on the deck of the airplane to hold this impromptu "meeting."

Now, it had occurred to me that clearing a large section of aircraft carrier's deck wasn't exactly the best use of our time. I had suggested meeting in some of the rooms of the airplane.

Nope.

Asuna is... not okay. Yui's told me she may recover in time, but it's gonna be a long time, if ever. She's able to talk easily around all the female of our group at least; she can talk to Klein, Peyton and Hisashi with a large amount of caution, but me?

I can't even be within twenty feet of her or she starts to shake uncontrollably. Same thing if she's in a closed space with me, such as, say the conference room on the plane.

She's currently a good distance away from me right now, maybe twenty-five feet. She avoids making eye contact with me.

I guess it's kind of understandable. She went through hell and I wasn't exactly a guardian angel. Although, Lizbeth did tell me that Asuna doesn't actually hate me or fault me for my decisions. She apparently said that she thought I made the right choice under the circumstances. Her fear response to me is purely physical.

Which is _just fantastic_.

Anyway, we're all here to lay out the plan for the immediate future. Or rather, make sure everyone is informed of the plan.

Klein clears his throat. "Okay. So here's our plan. Right now, the five military factions think we're on their side. Once we start this operation, that is going to change, and quickly. Our end goal is to evacuate the simulation. This involves climbing the spire in the center of the map through a long dungeon to reach the top. Instead of clearing the simulation and causing a collapse like Aincrad, Kirito has a plan."

He gestures for me to speak. "Uh, yeah. Yui and I have developed a plan to let me out. It involves learning how to code and gaining administrative privileges-" I notice the other seven are giving me a blank look. "I'm going to edit some text to make me the god of this simulation." I get a few weird looks for that, but I ignore them. "This will hopefully allow me to send all of us out of the simulation. I still need time to work on my hacking skills though, so this isn't going to happen, say tomorrow."

Klein nods and takes back over. "He estimates it will take about a month for him to gain the required skills. In the meantime, we have a few more matters to discuss. According to all records that have been made of the spire indicate that it should only take about one day to get to the top of. It's a short tower. The problem is how difficult the enemies are in there. Some of them are literally designed to withstand a massive army assault. We're going to raid some storehouses the Special-Operations branch maintains so we can resupply our heavy ordinance."

Hisashi shifts his weight. "This sounds like objectives we could have done in three days. What are we going to do with the rest of our time?"

Klein nods to him. "As I promised earlier, we're going to get your family out of Spec Ops hands. We need to set up a safe house for them, break them out, and somehow get them to exit the game with us. Right now, Kirito doesn't know anything about how he's going to get us out, only that it can _probably_ be done. We are also going to assassinate a target that Henrietta has specified. The leader of a group called Whitehall. These together should take up most if not all of the remaining time." He grows a wan smile. "If everything goes according to plan, we're out of here in a month."

Most of us here had already heard the plan. It's nice to have it laid out in front of you though. Only one detail is still missing. "Hey Klein, tell them how we're getting out of here."

He grimaces.

"We aren't walking out?" Lizbeth asks, looking between me and Klein. It's not her fault. Klein and I had come up with a better plan after the main strategy mission had ended.

"No." Klein shudders. "I thought of a better way, but it may not be acceptable to all parties. I already asked Asuna-"

I shoot the orange-haired girl a look, but she's still avoiding my eyes.

"-and she agreed. Now, if any of you have objections, you should tell me." He takes one more deep breath. "We're going to defect here, and commit suicide. This will allow us to respawn in the slums. That way, we'll be together and able to immediately take off for a safe haven. We'll get the drop on each of our respective groups and be given those crucial hours to get set up."

Several voices start to cry out in protest, but Henrietta's voice rises above the rest.

"Hours?" Henrietta squints her eyes at Klein.

"Yes, well. They're probably not monitoring us all the time, but they do call us to check in every so often. Once they notice that we're no longer on their call list, they'll be right after us."

"The next check in is in... thirty minutes." Hisashi notes. "I take it we're putting the plan into action then?"

Klein nods.

"What happens if we don't have the life to spare?" Asks Lizbeth.

"Everyone here has two or more lives left. Even after this, everyone can get killed once before they're better waiting in the slums until the rest clear it out. You may not remember telling me, but I did get everyone's dossier. Any other objections?"

This silences everyone.

"Alright, then let's-"

"I have a question!" Silica raises her arm. "What if we don't want to kill ourselves?"

"Then someone else is going to kill you." Klein says, clearing trying to strip any vehemence out of his tone. "We have suicide pills, so it will be nice and painless."

Silica frowns. "I don't like it."

"Neither do I." Lizbeth steps up to Klein. "Though, I do see how this is a better plan. Here give me a pill."

Klein opens his menu, then pauses. "Remember, we need to wait until our check in to be less suspicious."

I stop paying attention to Klein as he doles out the pills. Hisashi enters my field of view. "How did you get Christopher to agree to this operation?"

I shrug. "He's on board with it. Seems the whole 'Coast Guard loyalty' thing wasn't something he particularly valued. In fact, according to Klein, he was sent on this mission partially because he didn't get along with his unit."

He blinks. "That is very anti-climactic. I was expected bribes to be involved."

I give a "what-can-you-do?" gesture and turn away. Henrietta is about half a pace away from me. It takes all my inner fortitude not to flinch back. "What do you want?"

"I can't do it."

"Do what?"

"I can't take the suicide pill. I refuse."

Oh boy. "Why not?"

"It would harm my warrior's pride."

I have to stare at her blankly for a few seconds. "It would harm your warrior's pride." I repeat. "I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous."

She turns up her nose and crosses her arms, clearly refusing to listen to reason.

Klein comes over. "What's the problem?"

"She's flat out refusing to take a suicide pill."

Klein visibly droops. "Oh, right, they did say something about that in her file..." He opens his menu. "I don't know what else I have in here-"

I roll my eyes. "Look, I'll do it, Okay? Pistol to the brain, problem solved."

I half expected Henrietta to object, but she's trying to hold up the whole silent-treatment thing. Actually, upon further inspection, she seems to be struggling not to smile?

"Anyway, I think I'm going to check in early." Klein starts poking through his menu again. "I don't think waiting around is going to do anyone any favors."

He goes off and starts communicating with whichever branch he's supposed to check in with.

I glance back at Henrietta just in time to catch her left eye slamming shut.

Whatever.

I stand in place for the minute or so it takes to get home base informed of our mission. When he finishes, he turns to the rest of us. "Alright, let's go."

Everyone switches to their menu and waits for Klein to give the go ahead. On the count of three, we all cancel our allegiance to our respective militaries.

Then most of us pull out a pill with the exception on Henrietta. I pull out a pistol and aim it at her head.

To my surprise, she shakes her head slightly. This causes me to hesitate a second. The rest of the people around us collapse and after a second, shatter into thousands of shards of glass.

I turn to Henrietta. "What now?"

"I just want you to know, I'll always have your back."

"Huh?" I ask incredulously. "I'm your _target;_ you're not supposed to have my ba-mmph."

I was silences by her gluing her lips to mine. My brain short circuits in a panic. I finally get enough of my wits to put the pistol up to the side of her head and pull the trigger.

He body flops to the floor, a blissful smile on her face. Then she shatters.

I just stand there for a few more seconds.

"What. The. Fu-"

* * *

I'm obviously the last one to arrive in the slums.

I get a few looks from the first six to arrive, but they're all questioning looks, not weirded-out or confused looks. Henrietta, meanwhile, is _humming_. We all start moving in the direction Hisashi indicates, presumably in the direction of the safe house.

I'm not sure if it was Kuradeel's speech I heard earlier, but I'm certainly aware, now. In retrospect, it was kind of obvious that Asuna used to like me. Sure explains her rather _extreme_ meltdown when I went and came back from the dead. And I'm finding it hard not to notice Henrietta...

How the hell old is she, anyway? Her official file seems to think she's somewhere in the range of twenty three, which means she has a crush on someone five years her junior.

I fail to suppress a shudder and Lizbeth asks if anything's wrong. I hastily deny anything being wrong, which of course just made her more suspicious, but she dropped the subject.

Henrietta does look a lot younger than she should though... I need to figure out how old she is.

Er, not because I like her. It's creepy. She's creepy. She's crazy too.

Definitely just curiosity about squad members.

I'm going to murder my subconscious if it keeps snickering at me.

To get my mind off of matters, I speed up and get in step with Hisashi. "So, where exactly are we going?"

"I have a private residence in the slums. We should be able to hide out there for a day or two while I prepare a safer location."

I nod. "Okay." I keep step with him while walking in silence for a while, then I glance backwards. I accidentally make eye contact with Henrietta. She perks up and smiles. I immediately twist forward.

Hisashi gives me a questioning look.

I sigh. "Er... I know that you, being in with the Sneaky branch of the military, probably researched all of us beforehand, but do you happen to know how old Henrietta is? She, uh, looks really young for what her file says."

He smirks. "You need to take a closer look at her file. She was recruited from an early age. Remember when we were talking after we first met? I said most soldiers enter service at eighteen. She entered at fourteen, lying to say her age was eighteen. I don't think anyone was actually fooled, judging by her picture at the time it would be hard to believe she's as old as she claims."

I quickly do some mental math. "So she's only nineteen now?"

Hisashi must have noticed my relief. "Mmhmm. That means if you want to go after her, there's only a three year gap."

I throw my hands up. "It's really not like that. She's just..." Wait a sec, I can salvage my pride, I swear. "Remember what Kuradeel said? It got to me and I started thinking about not noticing Asuna had a crush on me. Then I realized that Henrietta had been doing some weird things..."

He places a hand on my head and scruffs up my hair. "It's nothing to worry about, kid. You still have time. And besides," He leans in close. "It's okay to make a mistake or two down the line, but make sure you take responsibility."

Then he straightens up and starts to talk to Peyton.

Great. Alone with my thoughts again. Or, I could get my goggles out.

Yui, for some reason, no longer looks like her blue-haired form she picked up when I was still pretending to be Klutz. Instead, she's back to being a little black-haired girl who currently has the deepest pout I've ever seen and her small arms crossed.

"Hey, Yui, what's-"

"You're mean."

"Oh, not you too. What now?" Out of the corner of my eye I can see Klein and Silica look my way, but I have bigger concerns on my mind.

"You cheated on mama!"

It takes me a good fifteen seconds to figure out what she meant. "You think I cheated... on Asuna."

She nods her head firmly.

"One. We're not dating, let alone married. Two. Neither of us are your real parents, even if you call her 'mama.' Three. Even if I" I lower my voice significantly. "'cheated,' on her, it wasn't because I wanted to! It was her fault!"

Yui continues to glare.

"You know what? Screw this." I take off the goggle and tuck them back onto my waist, before thinking some more and bringing it back to my lips. "And if you tell anyone else about that, I'm going to figure out how to rewrite your code to give you a verbal tic."

From the device I can faintly hear "You can't silencer me-pyon!"

"Are we there yet?" I ask Hisashi.

"Actually, Yes." He gives a broad sweep of his hand. "Welcome to my humble abode."

It's not much to look at, to be honest. Like almost everything else in the slums or even this server, it's made of scraps of whatever vehicle was handy at the time. Still, it's shelter.

Hisashi lets us in the front door and locks it behind us. "Okay, I'll show you to your rooms, then I need to go get some things arranged. You should all disarm yourselves if you head outside. You'll be less conspicuous that way." He notices Asuna had started to shake again. Right, I'm less than ten feet from her. "Asuna, let's see you take this room..."

I again stop paying attention. I need to start working on learning to code again. I don't really want to talk to Yui though. I can just go over her old lessons, I guess. I haven't been practicing-

"Kirito?"

I look up to find Henrietta leaning over my chair. Yeah, okay, knowing the reason she does that does _not_ make it less weird.

"...Can I help you?"

"I want to go out and see what's around."

"Have fun." I look back down at my menu, but a face pokes through before I have a chance to do anything.

"Aw, but I wanted you to come with me!"

"Not interested."

"Why not?"

"I need to learn to code. So I can get out. So we can all get out. If I don't we'll all be stuck here." I lean backwards until her face is again behind the menu and attempt to open the small program that I used to practice typing.

She climbs onto the arm of the chair. "Then teach me too!"

"What?"

"Teach me! I can help you!" I vaguely notice that her eyes have started to glitter. I didn't know eyes actually did that outside of picture books.

Hisashi comes out form the room he had shown... Holy crap, Henrietta and I are the only ones left in the room. She is really distracting.

She turns to him. "Tell him to teach me to code."

Hisashi gets that smirk on his face. "Well, it would be handy to have a backup plan in case something happens to you, Kirito. I say you should go for it. In fact, why don't you two leave and work on that while I get everything else settled?"

"Okay!"

I can only groan and hold my head.

* * *

After being directed to dump our excess gear in two separate rooms, Hisashi practically shoves us outside of his house before relocking the door.

"Traitor." I mutter at the door.

"So, where are we going?"

"We're going to an abandoned warehouse about half a mile from here. There, we can practice in peace for a few hours before we're set to return."

Her face twists into a bit of a pout, but she voices no objections.

We walk in silence until we get to the door of the warehouse. She reaches the door slightly before me and blocks my way in. "Hey, Kirito? I-"

Muffled by the door, I hear some new voices. "Huh? There's someone at the door!"

"Shit, grab the gear!"

"How'd they sneak up on us?"

"I don't know!"

No two sentences are said by the same person.

"What's going on?" Henrietta half-turns to the door just in time to watch a bullet soar right past her nose as someone starts blind firing through the door.

Hisashi had told us to completely disarm ourselves. While I'm sure he meant well, I don't trust his word that I'll be safe in the slums. Thus, I still have my pistol tucked into my inventory.

I draw it and squeeze off three rounds through the door, which stops the enemy fire.

Henrietta obviously had the same idea as she also pulls out a pistol. She rears back and slams her foot into the door, shattering it and allowing us access.

Five people stand inside the room, all pointing some sort of firearm at us. They're all wearing some loose green fabric somewhere on their person, presumably some sort of identifying garment.

Not that the thought even really entered my conscious mind.

I'm already running pell-mell at the thugs before they have a chance to react. My pistol lines up with one target, I squeeze the trigger, and I move on to the next.

It's over in five seconds.

I quickly load another magazine into my gun and sweep the area with my eyes. Nobody in sight.

"What were they doing?" Henrietta asks after I stop looking all around.

"I don't know. We should look... for..."

On a table dragged into the center of the room, a piece of paper is stretched out. It's covered with the details of a plan to attack the local police force. It has some sort of symbol drawn in the top corner.

"They literally were planning with pen and paper? How stupid can these guys be?"

Henrietta pales as she notices the symbol, and slams her hands down on the table to stabilize herself as she takes a good look at the picture. "Ex Imperio Libertas. What are they doing here?"

I look closer at the symbol. It depicts a wolf's head and an eagle who appear to be fighting with an uzi clenched in between teeth and a sword in beak respectively. Underneath it is two lines of text.

The bottom-most text is the phrase she had just muttered. The line above it only contains flowing, curly script that looks more like signature than something to identify a group.

_Whitehall_

Wait a second, aren't they the guys Henrietta has some sort of problem with? I glance up at her to see her eyes are wide and she's shaking slightly.

She's muttering something under her breath, and I can just barely make it out.

"They're here. They found me. They already know."

She keeps repeating that over and over.

I quickly call Klein. "Klein? We have a problem."

* * *

I manage to get Henrietta back to Hisashi's house by dragging her along. She didn't notice at all, and I suspect she wouldn't have noticed if I had dragged her onto a helicopter. I had rolled up the plans and stored them in my inventory.

Klein greets me at the door. "What's going on- holy crap, why's she gibbering?"

I let go of the woman's arm and open my menu, pulling the oversized piece of paper out of my inventory. I toss the now physical object to Klein and push the catatonic girl into a chair.

Huh. That's two girls with a crush on me going mental within twenty four hours of each other. I wonder what this says about those interested in me?

I shake my head to clear the thoughts away. I can't afford to let recent revelations rule my life. I lock all the confusion away and look straight at Klein. "She became like that after she saw the logo in the corner."

Klein looks in the indicated position and pales just like Henrietta did. "This is bad."

"Why?"

He shoots me a look. "Will you look at the dossiers, for god's sake? Hisashi was saying you hadn't read them thoroughly, but I figured that you probably just missed something-"

I cut him off. "Fine, I'll read them in depth. Just tell me _something_ to get me started."

"Whitehall. The group that Henrietta used to belong to? Her _last name?"_

Oh. Yeah, that's... "I'm going to go read a file now."

"You do that." He rapidly starts pressing buttons on his menu. "We need to rearrange our schedule, I need to contact-"

He cut's himself off and stares into space, a clear sign he'd just started a call he'd rather keep private.

I sit down in the nearest chair and open Henrietta's file. It has both neatly ordered text and some scrawls on it that detail inaccuracies in her file, such as her age.

Her full name is Henrietta Elizabeth Whitehall. She's the third child of Lord Andrew Whitehall, the Lord of the Whitehall group.

According to this, Henrietta underwent strict training from the time she was a small girl to become one of this world's elite. There's a lot of details on training regimens, but the scratchy writing about three quarters down the list catches my eye. Not only is it underlined twice and circled, whoever was editing this felt the used of red instead of black was warranted.

I slow down and make sure to read that section carefully.

"Age twelve, three months. After field mission, subject develops hostile attitude towards instructor, training regimen made more intense to bleed off excess energy. Free time restricted. Extra sessions training to follow orders."

"Age twelve, four months. Hostile attitude still present. Starting to impact performance on tests. Authorization for harsher disciplinary actions given."

"Age twelve, five months. Subject has become completely irrational, refusing to participate in regular training. Disposal of subject is requested. Denied by her father. New program needed."

The next few just note "No change."

"Age twelve, eight months. New regime started."

"Age twelve, nine months. Subject responds positively to new conditioning program. All skills are at or exceeding initial plan's estimates. Secondary skills also taking hold."

"Age twelve, ten months. Conditioning has resulted in higher performance than anticipated. Recommend field assignment to test abilities."

"Age twelve, eleven months. Field assignment failed. Subject was unable to coordinate with the squad under pressure. Conditioning continues."

"Age thirteen, zero months. Subject back to former skill level. Second field mission. Same results."

Eight more entries along the same lines of the last one. Condition, test, fail, repeat.

"Age thirteen, nine months. Subject deemed unusable. Sent to Navy to provide problems."

And while that's the end of the training information, it's not all the information by a long shot.

This file has details on the "conditioning" used, which seems to me to be some sort of brainwashing device that forces you to fight in battle after battle until you develop whatever skills you can from real combat, among several other situations that contain things like hostages and VIPs to protect. An etiquette program is included. Looking into the details, it seems it gave her a shock every time she failed so she'd try her hardest.

This machine may have been developed for Henrietta, but it is supposedly being used on the new recruits for Whitehall, with varied results.

Whitehall is apparently an organization that doesn't like the whole five-military setup. The organization is essentially a terrorist group, but they style themselves as freedom fighters. The first Whitehall was some sort of noble in the real world before entering the simulation, and his son Andrew followed in his footsteps, which makes Henrietta a literal princess.

She's the only female child in her family, and was expected to become a great fighter like all of her other siblings. When she stopped wanting to be just like her siblings around twelve years old, she was forced into a stricter program.

Her psychological profile states that she's normally a very upright girl, such as you'd expect out of someone who is a literal princes. It's only under certain conditions that her berserk tendencies show up. It would be helpful if they actually listed those conditions. I guess her recent "cheery" attitude is new.

I look up from the document and make eye contact with Klein. "What the fu-"

"Yes, it's massively screwed up. Henrietta's own father tried to make her into one of his soldiers, and he failed. We got the reject whose sanity is barely hanging together. It doesn't say in the document, but the reason she goes crazy is because the machine they use encourages rampages when the pressure is on. Peyton actually showed me an example of the program."

"How did he get a copy?

"The Spec-Ops guys made the thing, but it was stolen before they started testing. Lord Andrew Whitehall tested the machine _on his own daughter_ before deciding to use it for the cannon fodder soldiers he has. His main forces are well trained and very deadly."

"We encountered five or six of them in the warehouse Hisashi sent us to. They definitely weren't that special."

"Then they're probably the grunts they churn out with the machine."

I glance back at the dossier I still have open. "How on earth did you manage to get her to stop going berserk on us?"

Klein shakes his head. "I have no idea. My only guess is nobody ever tried to _talk _with her, since that's all I did."

Hisashi strides in the door. He and Klein whisper to each other fervently. When they finally break apart, I step up to Klein.

"What's our next move?"

"We still need to move to a more secure location." His expression turns into a frustrated growl. "And we need to figure out what they're doing here in the slums of all places. They've never recruited from here before. There's nothing you can do right now, Kirito. We need to get out of here before we can any further action. Go work on your coding skill."

He waves me away.

A thought strikes me. I'm being excluded from a strategy meeting. Very odd. I take one last look at the still-muttering Henrietta, then retreat to my room to practice.

I turn off the lights, sit cross-legged on my bed, and open the program to repeat the procedures Yui had taught me.

It's kind of cathartic, just like all tasks get to be once you can do them without consciously paying any attention to them. I let the background world fade away and focus on nothing.

The bed shifts slightly.

I immediately snap out of my self-imposed daze and slap my hand to my belt, only to find no gun there.

I needn't have bothered.

Asuna flinches away from me. She's sitting on the edge of my bed.

"Ah..." I force my voice to calm down. "A-Asuna. I'm sorry, I just-"

She holds a finger to her lips. In the dark, I can barely make out her features, but I can tell she's shaking through the mattress.

"H-how are you doing?" She asks weakly.

The question catches me off guard. That's what I should be asking her. "I'm fine. Are you okay?"

She hums an affirmative, but the shaking doesn't stop.

We sit in silence for what seems like eternity. I don't move at all for fear of freaking her out, which means I'm stuck in a ramrod straight posture for however long that eternity ends up being.

She eventually clears her throat. "I, um, don't blame you for what you did. Lizbeth and Silica told me we were all about to die, and you did what was necessary."

It's my turn to humm an affirmative. Mostly to avoid moving as much as possible.

"They said they told you, but I wanted you to hear it from me." She shifts her weight around, but doesn't seem to be getting up. "I wanted you to know that I don't hate you, okay? I mean, you've done some really stupid things. You faked your death; you can't seem to notice what's in front of you-"

Despite my mind screaming at itself to shut up, my mouth decides to chime in. "I recently got an eye opener, so I'll hopefully be better about that one."

She chuckles wanly. "Okay. Still, I've had a lot of time to think all of it over, and I'm not sure I would have done any better. Yui told me everything you did form when you left us on Silica's home floor."

"Well, I found out I made decisions I wasn't allowed to make. I shouldn't have ended the Aincrad server, and I shouldn't have entered here where you're all happy and ruined it-"

"I'd still be with _him._" She says quietly. "I'm glad you're here, even if my body doesn't agree."

Indeed, the bed still vibrates like someone's dropping ten hammers a second on it.

I slowly relax my posture and lay down on top of the bed. "I... I'm glad you don't hate me. That would really have hurt, I think."

We sit in silence a while longer.

"Can I talk to Yui?" Asuna finally asks.

"Uh? Oh, sure." I fumble the goggles and clumsily hand them over to Asuna.

I lie back down. I hadn't realized up until now, but I'm really, really tired. I pull a pillow over my head to block out the noise of the quiet conversation and roll to my side. I'm not needed for now, so I can rest.

I'm not needed, so I... can... rest...

* * *

I wake up to a little buzzer telling me that I should have been up an hour ago.

I remove the pillow from over my head and sit up. It takes me a second to take stock of my surroundings.

I'm in the bed Hisashi had allowed me to use in his house. Beside me, on top of the covers, is Asuna, sleeping peacefully. No shaking.

On the covers next to her, my goggles sit there abandoned. I carefully move myself off the bed, plucking the goggles up as I pass by.

"Yui what's going on?"

"That's what I'd like to know. She's in a delicate state right now, and she shouldn't be spending any significant amount of time near you to aid in recovery. Usually, forcing herself to be near you should have made her revert to catatonia once again. The fact it seems to be helping is... odd, to say the least."

"So, I should probably leave thirty seconds ago."

"You should have left as soon as she entered. Yes, leaving is probably a good idea. No telling what her reaction will be if she wakes up to see you first thing."

I eye the tiny girl, still in her childish form. "I feel vaguely insulted."

"Consider it no longer vague." She says. "And I notice you're still in the room."

I move to the door, but a soft voice from behind stops me in my tracks.

"Kirito? Where are you? I can't..."

I turn around to look at her. I can't see much in the dark, but she's reaching out with one of her hands.

"She's talking in her sleep." Yui informs me. "Looks like she doesn't want you to go."

"But you said-"

"And now I've changed my mind. Put me outside the door and tell Klein. It sounds like I have another patient to deal with."

I do as she instructs, then slowly move back to my bed.

Asuna has a furrow in her brow. She's mumbling incoherently, but I think I catch her calling my name again.

I sit on the edge of the bed and set my hand down near hers moving one. After a second or two of blind searching, she finds my hand and grips it tightly.

"I'm here, Asuna. I'm here."

In her sleep, her brow relaxes and a soft smile crosses her face.

* * *

To the guy who wanted relationships in the last chapter:

_Ya happy?_

Thank you all for the great reviews these past two years, and here's to me actually probably finishing before the next anniversary!


	28. Chapter 28: Three Body Problem

Semester's over? CHAPTER GET!

It's almost like Christmas, but instead of a fat man in a beard, there's a kid with black hair and a black overcoat. He's got a rifle, and he's clean shaven.

He's also shooting the reindeer and opening all the presents while yelling about epic loot. Aincrad Christmases are weird.

* * *

"...and if I _ever _hear of _anyone_ trying that method, I'm going to figure out a way to strangle you."

"Why me? It wasn't my idea."

"_A__nyone._"

"Fine!" I throw my hands in the air and turn around to walk away, temporarily forgetting I'm arguing with the little entity in my goggles. Turning around just makes her give me that unimpressed look she's developed. I've been on the receiving end of it more than my fair share, I think. I take off the goggles.

Lizbeth raises and eyebrow at me. "What's going on?"

"Yui's yelling at me about how I 'handled' the situation with Asuna."

"Really. And what situation was that?"

"She... uh, she fell asleep in my bed last night-"

"What?"

I frown at the pink haired girl. "She came to my room to talk to me. We both fell asleep at one point or another."

She gives me a disapproving look.

I throw my hands in the air. "Oh, yes, I took advantage of a mentally unstable girl. That's totally in character for me, right?"

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I take it she's still in your room then?"

"Yeah, still sleeping." I glance back at my door. "Yui told me that 'continued exposure to the object causing distress' should have hurt her more than she was already hurt, but it worked out for whatever reason. That's why she was chewing me out, since it shouldn't have worked."

"That makes sense. Since you miraculously cured Asuna, can you now do the same for Henrietta?"

"I thought Yui tried to help her last night."

"She did. Klein had to go to extreme lengths just to get the goggles to her, and Yui wouldn't talk to us about her interactions until she talked to you."

I lift the eyepieces up into my sight, and I can see a small, angry girl tapping her foot impatiently. "I'll get to that then." One more a deep breath and I put on the goggles. "Hi, Yui."

"Hi."

We stare at each other in awkward silence for a few seconds.

"So, what's up with Henrietta?"

"She's distressed. It comes with the abusive methods used to train her skills up." Yui says curtly. "I was unable to get her to calm down."

"Okay then. What's the best way to fix her?"

"Probably to wipe out the entire Whitehall family, all traces of the facility and come back with video evidence."

"Oh, great."

I wave at Lizbeth as I walk out to find Klein. I didn't have to look for long.

Klein is sitting right next to the exit with Hisashi and Peyton around a table. The three of them look up at me when I approach.

"Finally awake?" Klein asks.

I nod. "What's the plan?"

"We need to go after the Whitehalls first. I can't believe Henrietta acted like this with one mention of her last name. We already were planning on going after them..." He puts his head in his hands. "Not important right now. Kirito, I need you to look at the plan. We don't have the most up to date information, but it'll have to do."

He messes with some settings in his menu and suddenly a map appears on the table. I sit down across from Klein as he starts to point out things.

"This is a rough layout of the Whitehall complex." He points to several building in a row. "This is the main house, the barracks, weapons facility, maintenance bay for vehicles, and lastly, the training area." The buildings are arranged roughly in a circle, around some sort of central plaza. Klein taps another key and yellow lines trace over the entire map along with three red dots and countless cones of light blue. "Guard routes. About as perfect as any guard circuit can be. Few gaps, frequent check ins, and the guards all know each other."

"Looks pretty secure." I frown and study the routes carefully. Now that I'm paying more attention, I can see that the loops aren't consistent in color. The yellow has a brighter glow that travels around the loop. I guess that indicates relative movement of the guards. "Wait, isn't that a good gap right there?" I point to a point between the barracks and the main house when there are currently no guards in sight.

"Yes, that's the spot we were planning on using, but..." He trails off, then points to three red dots on the map. "These red dots are stationary guards. They're positioned at spots similar to the one you spotted, where there are gaps in their line of sight. Even if you take into consideration the cameras," He taps one of the blue cones, finger tapping on wood through the projection. "You can see it's a viable option.

"And since they placed guards there, they should know that those kinds of spots are vulnerable. Which begs the question, what does this mean?"

Peyton leans back in his chair and closes his eyes. "It's not likely that they're lacking in manpower, so it's definitely not because they're understaffed. Nah, I think it's a trap. Lure in the people that want to do the Whitehalls harm, then dispose of them."

"Ah." I look around the map. "Is there a second option that's less likely to be a trap?"

"No, unfortunately. We're probably going to have to take this route and hope it's not a trap." Klein straightens up. "Kirito, you, Silica, Hisashi and Peyton are going to be going in. You're all former Spec Ops, so you all have those stealth suits. Lizbeth, Chris and I are going to be waiting right here if things go sour." He points to a half-destroyed shipping container almost outside of the map. "We'll be carrying the heavy stuff so you can go in light."

"Well, that's all fine and dandy." I say. "But what are we actually trying to accomplish here?"

Instead of an answer, I receive a block of plastic explosive from Chris, who I hadn't seen approach. I can't help but smile a little.

"All we have left to do is arrange for some transportation-"

"I'm going too."

I turn around to see Henrietta standing in the doorframe, hands clutching the door jamb to keep herself upright.

"You can't." Klein says firmly. "You've been in and out of it all day at the mere mention of Whitehall."

"But-"

"I can't let you. You'd be a liability, and we can't have that."

"It's my problem. I have to help take care of it!"

"No, you don't actually have to. One way or the other, the Whitehalls will be wiped out."

Henrietta's eye betrays her by twitching. "I have to. I can't..." She looks at me. "Kirito, make them let me come along."

Every pair of eyes in the room looks to me.

"Eh..."

* * *

After three hours and two revisions to the plan, we head off to battle. By which I mean we start heading through the slums to get to the person who is going to get us transportation which we will then use to go to battle, which may not even be a battle if everything goes smoothly.

I can guarantee that it won't go smoothly.

Exhibit A: Henrietta. Currently yammering in my left ear in a most un-princess-like way. An endless torrent of words of past operations. I stopped paying attention ten minutes ago, but I'm pretty sure she's repeated at least one of the stories. She seems to be talking to distract herself, and it's working since she's not shaking at all. Of course, motor-mouthing isn't a good tactic in stealth...

The reason for revision two is Exhibit B. Asuna walks on my right side, completely silent except for the occasional noise of surprise or agreement at the appropriate times in Henrietta's stories.

Now, normally I'd be fine in this situation. I don't typically have trouble talking to girls.

It would be the same for these two, but one of them kissed me and the other slept beside me, both less than twenty four hours ago.

I doubt anyone in this situation would be abler to focus properly, and I need all the focus I can get for the mission ahead.

Chris has Yui again, so I can't talk to her, and everyone else is busy with their own conversations. I resign myself to my fate and turn to Henrietta.

"Are you clear on your part?" I ask the girl, who stops mid-sentence.

"Yes. I'm going to be sneaking in with you." She blinks at me twice, and I can't help but be a little relieved that she doesn't immediately start shaking again.

I turn to Asuna. "How about you?"

"I sit with Klein and Lizbeth and wait for you guys to come back." She says softly.

"That's right."

Hisashi stops, bringing the rest of us to a halt. "We've arrived. Klein, Henrietta, come with me. I may need your help."

Henrietta looks up to me before leaving. I just shrug and wave her forward.

Asuna sits down on an abandoned car seat nearby. I sit in one next to her.

"Henrietta seems nice." Asuna says after a minute or two of silence.

"Huh? Oh, I guess."

"She seems really scared of her family." She puts her chin in her hand. "I wouldn't handle being scared of my parents well."

"I don't think I would either."

We lapse into silence for a bit longer.

"I wonder how my parents are doing?" I murmur out loud.

"They're fine, last time I checked a month or so back." Asuna says. "A little disoriented, but weren't we all?"

"I was in one tiny room for a month, not that I was awake for most of it." I say blandly. "I don't know how anything was, except for what that Cristal guy told me."

She furrows her brows. "Do you mean Chrysheight?"

"Yeah. He was there when I woke up, along with Yui."

"I don't like him." She says. "He's hiding something."

"Yeah, I find I can't really trust him either. I mean, he seems to have my best interests at heart, but he also told me you guys had been in this simulation for only a day before I got in. I can't say whether he was just misinformed or what, but either way something's not right."

"He does seem to have a lot of interest in you." Asuna frowns. "I only met him once, right before we entered GunStorm. He talked about you and your motives a bit, which I have to say none of us were in the mood to hear. He also urged us to stay out of the simulation, but I had to get Pina back for Silica, you know?"

"Yeah, I know. So he deliberately lied to me. Now I have to wonder why." Now that I think about it, I haven't been getting messages from him too often ever since I started GunStorm.

"So, back to Henrietta." Asuna says. "You and she seem awful close."

"I have no idea how that happened." I say honestly. "She was supposed to be killing me, then Klein and I made a truce, so she had to stop. She challenged me to a duel, and after I won, she stopped staring daggers at me. She still stared at me, just no daggers." A shiver travels down my spine at the memory.

"Oh." Asuna seems to be considering that. "Is that why she treats you differently?"

I swallow to wet my suddenly too dry throat. "What do you mean?"

"When she was talking to you in Hisashi's house, she was all 'Hey, let's go out and see what's around!'" Asuna screws up her face to do a rather unflattering imitation of Henrietta. "When she talks to anyone else, she tends to turn up her nose, especially to me."

"Ah..." Sweat starts to bead on my back.

Thankfully, I'm saved by the trio that had headed inside leaving with a fourth member talking to Hisashi. The new guy is gruff looking with an eyepatch over one eye and a beard that looks like a boat captain's.

I watch as Klein shakes hands with the man, and then he heads back inside. I raise an eyebrow at Klein as he approaches.

"We've got an Armored Personnel Carrier to use." He grins. "We'll be fine until we get out, that for sure. It's only two hours walk form here."

"Only." I echo as I grin back. "Okay, let's get walking."

* * *

It would have been nice if more than just step one had gone off without a hitch.

A bullet whips past my cover, an upturned boat.

Beside me, Klein loads a new magazine into the bottom of his rifle, cursing under his breath.

There's good news and bad news. The good news is that these aren't Whitehall goons. The bad news is that these are Army goons.

We've officially been discovered.

Klein pops up, sprays a burst of fire at the soldiers, and ducks back down before they can respond in kind.

"How many are there?" I ask Klein.

"Too many." He growls.

I poke my rifle out and notice someone who seems to be giving out orders. I adjust my aim to slightly above his head and squeeze the trigger. The man shatters and some of the soldiers start panicking. I slide fully back behind my cover. "Got any ideas?"

"I was hoping you had some." He replies. "They probably have reinforcements coming too."

"We need to get to the APC quickly. It's our best shot of getting out of here alive." I say. I look around at our side of the battlefield to see who is in the best spot to get to the vehicle. It seems to be Peyton and Silica, Hunkering down behind a thick tube of concrete. "Klein, tell Peyton and Silica to get into the APC."

"I thought you didn't have a plan."

"I just made one up!" I poke my rifle out again and fire a shot at someone who didn't quite duck low enough.

Klein pokes his ear to trigger the radio. "Peyton, Silica, get to the APC. Drive it around to pick everyone up. Everyone else, maintain fire."

Several acknowledgements come through the radio.

I watch Peyton and Silica prepare to run, and watch as Peyton counts down with his fingers. I pull my pistol out and check it's properly loaded.

Three, two, one, go!

I stand up and try to draw a bead on the people firing at us. They look so much tinier without a scope. I fire a trio of bullets at a target, but I can't tell if they did anything. A bullet smacks into my shoulder and I lose my grip on my gun.

"OW! Shit!" I fall to the ground and start fumbling through my menu, looking for something to stop the bleed-out effect.

I find some bandages and quickly apply them, then pick my weapon off of the dusty ground and fire blindly over the boat.

A low rumble starts up, and the lights on the APC turn on. I don't think they're quite necessary at noon, but at least I know that the APC is on.

I fire a few more shots and the slide on my gun locks back, indicating an empty magazine. I pull a fresh one from my pocket and slide it into the handle.

The APC starts rolling. It heads over to Lizbeth and Asuna.

Lizbeth has her grenade launcher out, and she is lobbing projectiles in high arcs over the no-man's-land between us the Army. Asuna has a machine pistol in each hand, and something a lot bigger strapped to her back. She seems to be holding her own with the twin guns though. Peyton parks the vehicle in front of them and they both scramble inside.

Four inside, five to go.

The turret on top of the vehicle whirs to life and starts spraying bullets across the enemy lines.

The Army troops duck for cover and I take the chance to sprint to a new cover closer to the APC, Klein right behind me.

The APC starts rolling again, stopping in front of Hisashi, Chris and Henrietta.

Something suddenly jumps over our cover. Two Army men, both with shotguns, land in front of us and level the weapons at our heads.

I kick the barrel of my rifle up and pull the trigger, the un-aimed shot still tearing through the first one's chest. Klein guns down the second one without hesitation, and grabs the fallen man's shotgun.

I Watch the APC roll towards us. We're almost home free.

Then I hear the distinct sound of a rocket being fired.

I press myself flat to the ground and brace for impact.

Instead, I hear the report of a rifle and the explosion sounds too far off.

I look up to see Henrietta walking sideways behind the APC, keeping pace with it and aiming at our enemies.

Wait; does that mean she just shot down a rocket? That's absurd!

The APC arrives and the door on the back lowers. Henrietta, Klein and I quickly climb in. The door seals, and Peyton's voice comes over our radio from the front section. "Next stop, Whitehall. Hold onto your hats."

He revs the engine hard and I can feel the vehicle shifting around underneath me.

There are no windows, so I can't see what's going on outside. I can hear lots of weapons fire from outside though, bullets pinging off the side like marbles.

Inside the back are six seats. Klein, Hisashi, and Chris are on one side. Asuna and Henrietta each sit on the other side with a seat between them.

I plop myself down into it, and the sense of unease grows again.

Chris for one looks happy. "I always wanted to ride in one of these."

I lean forward. "Really?"

He nods. "This is an ARTEC GmbH Boxer. It's one of the best APCs that we have access to. This one has the Dutch GNGP module on it." He puts a cigarette in his mouth. "I thought that all these were under Army control."

"Obviously not." Hisashi says warmly.

Chris continues to chat about the vehicle protecting us, even as the noise of bullet impacts slows down to nothing.

An hour later, Peyton pulls into a cave of sorts and lets us all out.

It's only about two in the afternoon now, but I'm exhausted. Looking around, it seems I'm not the only one. Silica has flopped down onto the hard metal ground and stayed there. Lizbeth and Klein are propped against one of the wheels of the Boxer, eating lunch in silence.

Hisashi stands next to where I sit on the ground. I look up at the calm figure. "Hey, how are you holding up?"

He looks back down at me. "I am fine. Why do you ask?"

I gesture around at the group. "You seem to be the only one. I'm tired."

"That's what happens when you're tense." He says. "Understandable, since today was your first major firefight."

"Actually, no, this was my second." I drink some water from a flask I had pulled from my inventory. "I fought these guys that decorated their armor in red stripes. You guys were flying overhead, took down one of their helicopters and flew off. I had to take out their backup to grab one of their helicopters."

He nods his head. "Impressive. How did you get them to let you use the helicopter?"

"I didn't." I smirk. "You know how we need to do that hacking thing to get out of here? I used that to get control of the helicopter. I transferred ownership myself."

Hisashi gets a calculating look on his face. "This could be remarkably useful skill in many situations."

"Speaking of Hacking," Chris hands me Yui's goggles back. "She wants you to do some practicing. Says she has an idea that might help with the infiltration tomorrow night."

"Tomorrow? I thought we were going in as soon as possible, tonight."

"We were." Chris Leans against the wall of the cave on the opposite side as Hisashi. "But with the heat on us, we need to lay low for a while. We can't make it in time or tonight, so we need to wait for tomorrow night. Unless you want to go in in broad daylight."

"No thanks." I slip on the goggles. "Time to practice?"

Yui smiles. "Yep. We can't have you getting rusty before you even get past the beginner stage, can we?"

* * *

Klein decided that we should stay put until tomorrow morning, so we had about fourteen hours to kill. Currently, Asuna's on guard duty and I'm sitting near her while trying to finish my current task. Yui's goggles sit snuggly on my face so she can guide me through the process.

I type a few more lines of text and wait for the right time to slip it into the server's code. I can see Asuna looking at me a few times out of the corner of her eye, but I can't afford to pay too much attention to her or I might miss my chance.

I start to tap my foot in time with the code updates. It creates a haphazard beat on the metal.

Yui says that this isn't the entirety of the code on the server, but just the code running on one of eight processors. I'm not sure how that works, but apparently the main processor handles major requests, the secondary one helps out when that one gets overwhelmed, and there are extra ones that take over whenever there's large events, like a massive battle.

"If one processor had to run this entire simulation by itself, any time two of the military powers clashed, everything would slow down since too many processor cycles are devoted to the main battle. By contrast, if you tried to spread the load out over the first two cores, you start to get errors due to timing. The two main cores aren't in the same place physically, so there's a delay between them. It causes enough of a problem that the engineers who developed the cardinal server decided to add in six cores directly for processing large battles. The two main cores handle normal firefights and everyday life on the server, and anything fight with more than sixty four participants has one of the backup processors doing all the calculations. If there aren't massive battles going on, the extra cores process whatever requests the main CPU hands it."

I have to admit only about half of that made sense to me. She didn't stop there, though.

"Aincrad utilized the extra cores differently. All the main, day-to-day activities are handled by processor one, the individual battles by processor two, and the sub processors are used for floor bosses. Each one was able to handle up to five floor bosses at once. If, somehow, more than thirty bosses had been challenged at once, the people entering the thirty-first door would find in locked until one of the other bosses had died or stopped fighting."

Which is nice to know and all, but that still doesn't help me with my current task.

I'm trying to get this code in on one of the sub cores. There's a lot less traffic in here, but the information rarely pauses for more than a fraction of a second.

I perk up as I catch mention of what I'm targeting.

Someone's messing around with their cloak. I sit up a little straighter and watch the code scroll by. Yui had shown me what most of this means, initialization of the cloak programs, location data, displaying the shimmer effects, et cetera. I hover my finger over the enter key and get ready to submit the code. Wait for it...

I slam my finger down through the keyboard and watch as the code is inserted into the processor queue.

I hold my breath for a minute, waiting for errors to start popping up.

A small ding announces I have mail. I open up the message to find it has no subject, not contents, but it's from the server and has an attachment. I open the attachment with barely contained excitement.

It worked!

I grab the new item I downloaded and stick it on my belt.

Asuna leaves her post and walks up to me. "Did you get it to work?"

"Yes!" I haul myself to my feet and press a button on my suit. I turn invisible, and I note with satisfaction that the bar displaying how much time is gone and the timer displaying how much time I have left is displaying "NaN" instead of a number.

Yui smiles at me. "Congratulations."

"Kirito?" Asuna glances to her sides to see if I'm there. I disable the cloak and she jumps slightly.

"Yeah?" I ask once I reappear.

"What did you do, exactly?" She asks cautiously.

"I made it so my cloak doesn't deplete." I say happily. "This device sets the starting value of the cloak to negative one, which tricks the computer into allowing me to use the cloak forever, since it never reaches zero by subtracting."

"In theory." Yui says. "In practice, it will happen eventually, but that will occur in over one point oh seven times ten to the thirty first power years, well beyond the heat death of the universe."

I eye the little girl. "I'll be fine then?"

"Yes."

I turn my attention back to Asuna. "How's your watch going?"

"It's almost over." She turns back to the cave opening. "I wish I had one of those stealth suits."

"I can try to get you one." I scratch the back of my head. "I think I might have an idea on how to do that."

She turns back to me in surprise. "Really?"

"Yeah. I just need to change a valid equipment request to the server to a request to get you a stealth suit." I scratch my head. "I don't know if I can get you one before our mission though."

She deflates slightly. "Oh."

I quickly put my hands up in front of me. "Don't worry; I'll do my best to get you a suit." I try to cheer her up. "And if I can get one, I'll make sure I get you an infinity device too."

She smiles slightly. I walk up right beside her and look out over the terrain. The sun is setting behind the central spire of this server, the sky a glorious mix of gold and red. Asuna and I stare at the sight for a while in silence. Only once the sky fades to a dark blue, well on its way to black, Asuna speaks.

"I wish I was back at home." She sighs.

I shrink back into myself slightly. Right, and who's the guy who took that from her again? "Me too." I agree without much conviction.

She either doesn't notice my lack of enthusiasm or ignores it. "I mean, at the time I wasn't thrilled. I had a small house on floor twelve. But it was home. Mom and Dad would visit sometime." She closes her eyes as she undoubtedly recalls the scenes she's describing.

"Yeah." My stomach drops out. _Look what you took away!_

"A place where I could just relax-"

"I get it." I say vehemently.

She turns to me in surprise. "Kirito?"

"I get it. I'm sorry I took that all away, okay?"

"I- I didn't... I wasn't thinking-"

"Sure. Enjoy the rest of your shift."

"Kirito? Kirito!"

I walk away, stomach still churning considerably. As if I didn't berate myself about it enough.

I get deeper into the cave, behind the APC to find Christopher messing around with something odd. He notices me and waves me over.

"What's up?"

"I built this." He says proudly. He hands me his project.

It's some sort of machine, I can tell that right off the bat. It looks roughly like a butterfly, with a slender central section and two hollow "wings" with two sets of miniature blades in what would be the "top" and "bottom" portions of the butterfly's wings. Flipping it over, it has some sort of sensor array under the center tube. The entire assembly is very lightweight.

"I'm assuming it flies." I state.

He nods. "It's a quadcopter. We use them as surveillance drones in the Coast Guard. I fitted this one with a small hologram projector and a speaker, as well as a solar panel so it takes longer to run out of power."

"Neat."

"Can I see Yui real quick?"

I hand him the goggles without thinking. He takes a cord from his belt and plugs the cord into the drone, then to a port in the side of the goggles. I watch silently, expecting something to happen.

After a minute or two, I clear my throat. "What's supposed to be happening?"

"Yui's transferring to the drone." Chris says. It's going to take five minutes, by my estimate."

I raise my eyebrow. "Why are you transferring her to the drone?"

He leans back in his chair, removing a much worn, unlit cigarette from his mouth. He discards the white stick over his shoulder. "She wanted a new body. Said she was tired of being yanked off of people's faces. I discussed a few options for vehicle bases, and she wanted the mobility of flight."

"So she agreed to this?"

"Of course. I'm not about to force anything on her." Chris squints at me. "Do you take me for the kind of guy that forces girls to do his bidding?"

"No, but Yui isn't exactly a girl. She's a chunk of soft-"

"Let me stop you there." Chris's eyes, normally a soft brown, suddenly seem black. "Are you one of those guys that think AIs are beneath humans?"

I'm not sure how to answer his question. After a few seconds of trying to think of a response, I slowly answer. "No?"

"Bullshit. I can tell your type. 'She's just code', 'she's not real', 'she's not human.' Let me ask you this, would you say any of that to her face?"

"Er-"

"She can think. She has emotions. She's more emotionally varied than some of the people in our group. She has likes and dislikes. I bet you don't even know what her favorite flavor of ice cream is."

"She can eat?"

"There! Right there! You just... _assume_ she's substandard because she's an AI. She's sentient, just like you and I."

"No, I don't." I put some frost into my voice. "I've been fighting for my life, dead, unconscious, or _you _had her since I met her. When _I_ met her, by the way, she was literally emotionless. She got that upgrade along the way."

"You still treat her like most of us would treat a drone. Useful, but not worth risking your life over."

I glare at the older man. "Yui was my only companion through some really tough times. I've seen her go through some really odd stages of development. She's helped keep me sane. She was the only one who came to see me when I woke up outside my simulation weak and barely breathing. I don't consider her human, because she's not, but she is my friend."

He glares right back at me, but slowly backs down. "Fortunately for you, Yui corroborates your story. But you better watch yourself."

A soft beep comes from the drone. Chris quickly removes the connecting cable and the drone lifts up into the air. A foot tall, slightly glowing representation of Yui in her childish form appears in the air about head height, the four rotor blades keeping the physical portion of Yui about two inches over her head. "Hey!"

I smile at the girl. "Hey."

Chris schools his features back to his usual nonchalance. "Any problems?"

"No errors so far." She looks around, then the drone swoops down and Yui's image changes to look like she's flying around the cave.

"She really seems to like it." I mutter out loud.

"Yep." Chris agrees.

She arrives back in front of us. "Kirito! I can fly!"

A broad grin crosses my face. "Yeah, I can see that."

She turns back to Chris and bows almost ninety degrees. "Thank you so much!"

He smiles softly. "Don't mention it. If you need anything adjusted, or something added or fixed, just tell me, okay?"

"Okay!" The girl darts off towards the front of the cave.

I can hear Asuna cry out in surprise a moment later, then turn away. Chris gives me one last look, then sighs and holds out his right hand. "I'm sorry, Kirito. I shouldn't have been that harsh."

I slowly reach for his hand and shake it.

He continues. "I... I was the lead developer for several AIs the Coast Guard was working on, and I had a few basic ones that remembered how you treated them and stuff, but I didn't get them to be the merciless killing machines they higher-ups wanted. They shut down my projects and erased all four of them, and... I guess it really got to me." He held my hand firm until he finished his explanation.

"Well, we all have that touchy subject, I guess." I force a grin. "I'm sorry I wasn't treating her well enough."

"I'm not the one you need to apologize to." He yawns. "I'm gonna hit the sack."

I nod. "Me too."

I sift through the latest strategy meeting's contents, trying to figure out when I'm supposed to be on guard duty. It's currently eight thirty...

I have the shift right after Asuna's, don't I?

Doesn't look like I'll be getting much sleep for the next two and a half hours, at the very least.

Well, I have time to kill. I bring up the console I've been using to type up my batches of code.

"Time to see if I can make Christmas come early." I grin slightly to myself.

* * *

I really need to stop listening to Christmas music in May.

Anyone who can figure out how many bits a Cardinal server in my story uses gets an internet cookie.

Also, for anyone interested in sentient AI rights and the ethical concerns, watch the movie "Time of Eve." Then PM me. I love talking about AI ethics.


End file.
